But it involves more than just the true author being concealed, he told the jury. "It's a process where the ghostwriters work for companies who are very good at getting articles into the best journals in the field, like the New England Journal of Medicine, and recruiting some of the best known names in the field to be the apparent authors of the articles."
"They may come from one of the big named universities like Princeton or whoever, but the actual fact the person who appears to be the author isn't the true author," he said. "If you were to read the article, you often don't get any hints of who the true author of the article actually was."
Ghostwriting impacts doctors in the real world trying to make decisions on whether to prescribe a drug in several ways, Healy told the jury. For instance, he said, if he was doing his own writing, he "would write an article on the drug, warts and all."
"But if the article has been written by a ghostwriter working for one of the pharmaceutical companies," he said, "the chances are the warts are somehow going to vanish."
"The article will talk about the good aspects of the drug and will leave out the risky issues which are probably the most important things for the practicing doctor to know," he explained.
If the ghost author comes from an extremely distinguished university, doctors reading the article will think it has to be right, he said. "The simple fact that the article is going to be apparently written by this big named person and appears in an extremely good journal means that most average doctors will think this has to be true," he told the jury.
It's not just the case of the doctor who reads the article being deceived, he said. "It's the fact that the credibility of the institution is and the name is being used to sell the drug, as well."
Healy came face-to-face with ghostwriting when one of the drug companies offered to ghostwrite his articles, he said. Since then, he has researched the ghostwriting process to assess how common it is.
Next Page 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).