Health Propaganda, Exposed
Before you act: Don't stop, replace, or delay any treatment without talking to your doctor.
“Recruited authors were commonly the sole author on the manuscript and offered honoraria for their participation.”
Case-study review of about 250 court documents from rofecoxib litigation plus 96 published articles.
Funding section not accessible to us; several authors served as plaintiffs' consultants in Vioxx litigation (see BMJ 2007 disclosure).
"Court documents originally obtained during litigation related to rofecoxib against Merck & Co Inc," created mostly 1996–2004.
Documents describe "Merck marketing employees developing plans for manuscripts, contracting with medical publishing companies to ghostwrite manuscripts, and recruiting external, academically affiliated investigators to be authors." Only "50% (36 of 72) of review articles" disclosed Merck sponsorship or author compensation, versus 92% of trial articles.
It does not show the published data were false; it concerns authorship and disclosure practices in one company's documents.
Merck disputed the characterization at the time, saying outside authors had meaningful roles.