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WHAT'S THIS?
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FREELANCE SPOTLIGHT
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Over the past few years the activities of publication planning and medical education and communication companies (MECCs) have attracted growing criticism, in particular for the use of unacknowledged freelance medical writers to help scientists draft their peer-reviewed papers – a practice referred to as “ghost writing”. Critics also complain that MECCs instruct these writers to insert “marketing messages” into papers in order to promote the products of pharmaceutical clients.
Industry organisations like the International Society for Medical Publication Professionals (ISMPP) have responded by making a clear distinction between ghost writing and “transparent writing collaboration”, and now discourage the former. However, critics have not been appeased, arguing that, aside from the handful of people who produce the paper, no one can ever know whether an unnamed freelance writer has been involved, or whether marketing messages have been covertly inserted into papers – not least because the entire industry remains enveloped in secrecy.
So who are these freelance writers? What exactly do they do? What are their views on the controversy? Neil Armand finds out.
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An interview with Catherine Rees
Published 8 January 2011
The practice of publication planning and freelance medical writing has come under growing attack in recent years, with claims that many of the medical articles published in peer-reviewed journals are not really objective reports of clinical trials, but sophisticated marketing exercises orchestrated by pharmaceutical companies in order to promote their products.
A particular practice deplored by critics is so-called ghost-writing, where pharmaceutical companies — usually via intermediary service providers called medical communication companies — pay freelance writers to produce papers for physicians, who simply add their name to the end product. These articles, claim critics, overstate the efficacy of the sponsoring company’s drugs, and downplay any negative aspects. Some estimate that as many as 12% of the medical papers published today have been ghost-written.
Medical writers respond by pointing out that many of the examples cited by critics date back 10 years or more. Since then the industry has cleaned up its act. Moreover, they add, allegations of ghost-writing don’t always stand up to scrutiny. In September 2009, for instance, Reuters published a story implying that freelance medical writer Catherine Rees had ghost-written a paper for a professor of clinical pharmacy at the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy. This, responds Rees, is simply not true. Her contribution was clearly acknowledged at the outset.
Below Rees, a freelance medical writer based in New Zealand, and proprietor of Rata Communications, explains how the Reuters story got it wrong. She suggests, however, that if the medical communications industry really wants to demonstrate that it is sincere about its new commitment to ethical standards and transparency it needs to become more media savvy, and end its culture of silence.
[Access full article here].
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An interview with Clement Weinberger
Published 23 October 2010
Clement Weinberger is a freelance medical writer based near New York who trades as sole proprietor of his own company The Stylus. During his career Clement has been a researcher in cell biology, a lecturer, a product marketing manager for a medical device manufacturer, a sales rep, a technical writer, a publication planner, and medical communications director at pharmaceutical company Sanofi (now Sanofi-Aventis following the acquisition of Aventis by Sanofi-Synthélabo in 2004). In short, there’s little that Clement doesn’t know about the medical writing and publication planning industry.
[Access full article here].
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An interview with Caitlin Rothermel
Published 5 October 2010
Neil Armand speaks to Caitlin Rothermel, a freelance medical writer based in Seattle who runs her own company, MedLitera.
[Access full article here].
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WHAT ELSE?
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NEWS ALERT!
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The latest jobs at NextMedCommsJob needing publications planning expertise...
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The 8th Annual Meeting of ISMPP
Practical Solutions for a Complex Medical Publications World
23-25 April 2012
at the
Hyatt Regency, Baltimore, MD, USA
Register now!
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