MHRA, regulatory "capture" slammed at UK parliamentary pharma hearing

Over 50% of articles appearing in leading medical journals relating to new products and signed by distinguished clinicians are in fact ghostwritten by the companies which make them, a UK parliamentary committee has been told.

Experts are paid for the articles to which their names are put but may not have even seen the raw data on which the articles are purportedly based, David Healy of the North Wales Department of Psychological Medicine told the House of Commons' Health Select Committee's second hearing into the influence of the pharmaceutical industry (Marketletter September 20). The people signing articles which they have not in fact written may include "the most distinguished authors from the most prestigious universities," he said.

This practice is associated with a demonstrable failure to disclose important drug safety data or the reporting of such data in terms that mislead, he told the panel, adding that the risks are due to the data which the ghostwriters purport to represent being inaccessible to outside scrutiny.