An industry group, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers Association of America, said that "it is essential for clinical trials to be conducted as ethically as possible" but disputed any inference that company-sponsored studies are inherently biased.
The group said the U.S. Food and Drug Administration acts as a check by reviewing protocols, data and conclusions.
It's understandable that drug companies sponsor studies on drugs they developed, DeAngelis said in an interview. "It's the drug companies that discover these drugs, and thank God somebody does," she said.
But she said it's dishonest for companies to hire doctors to lend prestige to studies they had little role in, and to hide the participation of outside firms that do much of the writing and apply the drug company's spin.
The editorial proposed that all authors disclose their contributions and that anybody who helped write the article but didn't qualify for authorship be listed in acknowledgments. It also proposed that any editor who allows for-profit companies "to manipulate his or her journal must be relieved of the editorship."
The articles struck a chord with Dr. Jean Sealey, a retired professor from Weill Cornell Medical College in New York. Last year, she said, a London-based consulting firm that helps drug companies publish research invited her to "author" an article for a coming conference of the American Society for Hypertension.
Sealey, a noted authority on hypertension, said two things surprised her about the offer: The conference was only a week away, and she had never heard of the drug, much less conducted any research on it:
"I knew nothing about this drug, and I didn't really know how to pronounce it. Clearly they just wanted my name."
The offer came in a series of e-mails, then in a phone call. Sealey said the line went dead when she asked whether she'd have access to the data, and she never heard from the company again.
"Every time I hear something about this field, I get shocked," she said.
Dr. Troyen Brennan, former director of the physicians' organization at Boston's Brigham and Women's Hospital, brought the issue to light in a piece he wrote in 1994 for the New England Journal of Medicine.
He said a prominent public relations firm, Edelman Medical Communications, offered him $2,500 to write an editorial about antihistamines and other drugs with sedative effects.
