Phony papers: Companies fudge medical research (Picture by Sanat K. Sinha)

Last week another skeleton tumbled out of the closet of big pharmaceutical corporations when a researcher blew the whistle over ghost-written publications in medical journals. The revelation confirms what medical ethicists have been suspecting for years ' many drug companies are clandestinely writing research articles to endorse their medicines and paying senior doctors to sign their names to them. And medical practitioners all over the world have been unwittingly relying on the phony medical literature to make key treatment decisions.

Because doctors are unable to perform every experiment it’s the basic tenet of modern evidence-based medicine that they depend on accuracy and impartiality of articles to make informed decisions. In fact, reputed medical journals ' such as the New England Journal of Medicine and Lancet ' are regarded as authentic scientific record as well as fora for balanced exchange of views among physicians. Doctors rely so heavily on what’s printed in these journals that a drug’s success or failure is directly affected by opinions expressed in an article in them.

In the last few decades the drug giants came to realise that conventional avenues of drug promotion like advertising to physicians through medical representatives and influencing their prescription is not enough to push their products. Even sponsoring of medical conferences were deemed inadequate to maximise their profits. So amidst the billion-dollar competition to create blockbuster drugs, there was only one thing worth more than all the ads and sponsored meets money can buy: a single positive mention in a respected medical journal.

The drug giants hunted out vulnerable research scholars who could highlight positive aspects of their drugs (downplaying the adverse effects) in skilfully penned reports. These expert writers could also exaggerate the side-effects of a rival company’s drug. The drug companies also managed to find senior doctors or researchers who would lend their names to the ‘research’ in exchange of huge ‘professional’ fees. To make sure the articles got published the big companies even ‘bought’ the reviewers of the articles.

Such masqueraded promotional pieces have secretly deluged academic medicine. According to an investigation by the The Observer, half of all medical articles are ghostwritten.

It’s a pity that even though side-effects of blockbuster drugs like Vioxx, Bextra or Prozac have come to the forefront, no scientist has been brave enough to break the lids on ghost-written articles.

Science owes a lot to the South African researcher Adrianne Fugh-Berman for refusing to compromise herself just to get published and standing up against corporate designs. Her effort will go a long away in rescuing research from the clutches of egregious corporates.