Pharmaceutical Company Writing Good Stuff About Their Product

Usually when pharmaceutical companies are writing good stuff about themselves they are called advertisements. But, when they write it about themselves, except do so in ghostwritten "scientific papers", it should be called fraud. I guess it was a way to save money from just paying doctors to make up test results.

This past week, the New York Times reported the recently released court documents show that Wyeth Pharmaceuticals produced 26 scientific papers backing the use of hormone replacement therapy in women. They hired a medical communications firm to publish their papers in medical journals between 1998 and 2005.

Addressing the hormone drugs Premarin (conjugated estrogens) and Prempro (conjugated estrogens/medroxyprogesterone acetate), the papers emphasized the benefits and de-emphasized the risks of taking hormones to protect against maladies like aging skin, heart disease and dementia. At the same time, Wyeth saw sales rise to nearly $2 billion in 2001.

These were companies that until recently were protected by federal preemption from many lawsuits. Companies that paid defense lawyers millions of dollars to question the honesty and integrity of injured plaintiffs. It’s to bad none of this evidence was available before too uncover the lies so many of these cases were based on.