Hugh Johnson
Member
Inauthentic Selves: The modern LGBTQ+ Movement Is Run By Philanthropic Astroturf And Based On Junk…
This article is longer than a hunger year, but it includes a lot of discussion about trans research, big phrama profits, ghost-writing of scientific publications by Big Pharma and a lot of other stuff. The author has a strong political agenda, but the investigation and arguments are mostly solid. I'll paste the points I found most interesting:
“The language of astroturfers and propagandists includes trademark inflammatory terms such as: anti, nutty, quack, crank, pseudo-science, debunking, conspiracy theory, deniers and junk science. Sometimes astroturfers claim to “debunk myths” that aren’t myths at all. They declare debates over that aren’t over. They claim that “everybody agrees” when everyone doesn’t agree. They aim to make you think you’re an outlier when you’re not.
Astroturfers and propagandists tend to attack and controversialize the news organizations, personalities and people surrounding an issue rather than sticking to the facts. They try to censor and silence topics and speakers rather than engage them. And most of all, they reserve all their expressed skepticism for those who expose wrongdoing rather than the wrongdoers. In other words, instead of questioning authority, they question those who question authority”
...
Pfizer, which makes the estrogen drug Premarin after purchasing Wyeth in 2009, is a major corporate partner of the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) and received a 100% score on the HRC’s Corporate Equality Index. Wyeth was no stranger to targeting minorities for drug experimentation. In a suit filed and unsealed in 2010, a pair of former hospital sales representatives filed a whistleblower suit, alleging that Wyeth illegally promoted the Rapamune kidney transplant drug. Targeting African-Americans, Wyeth promoted off-label use of the Rapamune drug for use in other organs, when it was only FDA approved for use in kidney transplants. Representatives were provided with studies and abstracts to use when marketing the use of the drug off-label. Wyeth offered doctors and hospitals kickbacks when they prescribed Rapamune off-label. The FDA had actively warned against some of the promoted uses of Rapamune. Wyeth later agreed to pay $490 million to the Department of Justice to resolve its liability. Wyeth again engaged in unethical behavior with Prempro, another estrogen hormone replacement therapy drug, which is also used for transition. Wyeth used ‘medical ghostwriters’ to build a brand around Prempro and various off-label uses of the drug. What’s medical ghostwriting? Essentially, it’s a pharmaceutical company producing a peer-reviewed article promoting use of a drug it makes, often for off-label uses.
This is done by hiring a commercial medical writing company to produce papers that can then be published in academic journals. An academic is attributed authorship, even though they have not written the paper. The paper contains conclusions that support the pharmaceutical company’s marketing desires for a particular drug. In the case of Prempro, legal documents that emerged from a lawsuit brought by 14,000 patients were released to PLoS Medicine, an open access journal (viewable here). It revealed that Wyeth hired a medical communications company, DesignWrite, who then produced a first draft of a paper, received advice on a second draft from Wyeth, then sent it to an academic who would ‘author’ the paper by attaching their name and claiming authorship. Typically, the papers are review articles — they review a body of literature on a particular drug, then draw conclusions on its use. While the academics weren’t paid, political currency in academia has become the number of papers published in journals, so it added to their credentials. DesignWrite sold over 50 articles to Wyeth about HRT and produced conference posters and symposia materials. The material produced by DesignWrite promoted off-label uses of HRT. DesignWrite also promoted its advisory board creation and management capabilities to pharmaceutical companies.
While medical ghostwriting is clearly unethical, it’s not illegal. Because academic publications aren’t considered promotional, it does not fall afoul of off-label marketing laws. Pharma companies can ghostwrite as many articles as they like, building a message that the off-label use of drugs is safe, acceptable. They then publish that in an academic journal. Wyeth would produce studies that sang the praises of HRT for things it could never market it for, like curing wrinkles. Because the fact that the paper is ghostwritten is never disclosed, it means that people could potentially be receiving biased information that favors a drug company and using that when making decisions around patient health. If a large body of ‘research’ is promoting a use for a drug, then it must work, right?
How prevalent is medical ghost-writing,? The New York Times estimated in 2009 that 5–11% of medical articles are ghostwritten, though this ultimately depends on the drug. With one drug (sertraline), between 18% and 44% of articles on the subject were funded and ghostwritten by Pfizer. But without disclosure, we do not know how prevalent the problem might actually be.
This article is longer than a hunger year, but it includes a lot of discussion about trans research, big phrama profits, ghost-writing of scientific publications by Big Pharma and a lot of other stuff. The author has a strong political agenda, but the investigation and arguments are mostly solid. I'll paste the points I found most interesting:
“The language of astroturfers and propagandists includes trademark inflammatory terms such as: anti, nutty, quack, crank, pseudo-science, debunking, conspiracy theory, deniers and junk science. Sometimes astroturfers claim to “debunk myths” that aren’t myths at all. They declare debates over that aren’t over. They claim that “everybody agrees” when everyone doesn’t agree. They aim to make you think you’re an outlier when you’re not.
Astroturfers and propagandists tend to attack and controversialize the news organizations, personalities and people surrounding an issue rather than sticking to the facts. They try to censor and silence topics and speakers rather than engage them. And most of all, they reserve all their expressed skepticism for those who expose wrongdoing rather than the wrongdoers. In other words, instead of questioning authority, they question those who question authority”
...
Pfizer, which makes the estrogen drug Premarin after purchasing Wyeth in 2009, is a major corporate partner of the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) and received a 100% score on the HRC’s Corporate Equality Index. Wyeth was no stranger to targeting minorities for drug experimentation. In a suit filed and unsealed in 2010, a pair of former hospital sales representatives filed a whistleblower suit, alleging that Wyeth illegally promoted the Rapamune kidney transplant drug. Targeting African-Americans, Wyeth promoted off-label use of the Rapamune drug for use in other organs, when it was only FDA approved for use in kidney transplants. Representatives were provided with studies and abstracts to use when marketing the use of the drug off-label. Wyeth offered doctors and hospitals kickbacks when they prescribed Rapamune off-label. The FDA had actively warned against some of the promoted uses of Rapamune. Wyeth later agreed to pay $490 million to the Department of Justice to resolve its liability. Wyeth again engaged in unethical behavior with Prempro, another estrogen hormone replacement therapy drug, which is also used for transition. Wyeth used ‘medical ghostwriters’ to build a brand around Prempro and various off-label uses of the drug. What’s medical ghostwriting? Essentially, it’s a pharmaceutical company producing a peer-reviewed article promoting use of a drug it makes, often for off-label uses.
This is done by hiring a commercial medical writing company to produce papers that can then be published in academic journals. An academic is attributed authorship, even though they have not written the paper. The paper contains conclusions that support the pharmaceutical company’s marketing desires for a particular drug. In the case of Prempro, legal documents that emerged from a lawsuit brought by 14,000 patients were released to PLoS Medicine, an open access journal (viewable here). It revealed that Wyeth hired a medical communications company, DesignWrite, who then produced a first draft of a paper, received advice on a second draft from Wyeth, then sent it to an academic who would ‘author’ the paper by attaching their name and claiming authorship. Typically, the papers are review articles — they review a body of literature on a particular drug, then draw conclusions on its use. While the academics weren’t paid, political currency in academia has become the number of papers published in journals, so it added to their credentials. DesignWrite sold over 50 articles to Wyeth about HRT and produced conference posters and symposia materials. The material produced by DesignWrite promoted off-label uses of HRT. DesignWrite also promoted its advisory board creation and management capabilities to pharmaceutical companies.
While medical ghostwriting is clearly unethical, it’s not illegal. Because academic publications aren’t considered promotional, it does not fall afoul of off-label marketing laws. Pharma companies can ghostwrite as many articles as they like, building a message that the off-label use of drugs is safe, acceptable. They then publish that in an academic journal. Wyeth would produce studies that sang the praises of HRT for things it could never market it for, like curing wrinkles. Because the fact that the paper is ghostwritten is never disclosed, it means that people could potentially be receiving biased information that favors a drug company and using that when making decisions around patient health. If a large body of ‘research’ is promoting a use for a drug, then it must work, right?
How prevalent is medical ghost-writing,? The New York Times estimated in 2009 that 5–11% of medical articles are ghostwritten, though this ultimately depends on the drug. With one drug (sertraline), between 18% and 44% of articles on the subject were funded and ghostwritten by Pfizer. But without disclosure, we do not know how prevalent the problem might actually be.
