The economy may be collapsing, but American corporations continue to demonstrate a knack for innovation. Though large pharmaceutical companies have decisively failed to recently create new breakthrough or even useful copycat drugs, their marketing departmentsÕ inventives continue to astonish the world.

         Recent hearings by Senator Chuck Grassley have explored how just one company, Wyeth, managed to create medical journal articles supporting drugs, especially Prempro, following major government studies demonstrating Prempro caused breast cancer.  How did it work?  First, a marketing executive would identify a drug needing ÒsupportÓ in the scientific literature, as when one Wyeth executive requested  Òone positive article a monthÓ appear in the scientific literature about their hormone replacement drug Premarin.

         Once the article quota was set, the firm DesignWrite wrote the articles.  These custom written reports and reviews were next sent to Òopinion leaders,Ó prominent academic researchers who presumably read them, and then placed their names on the cover.   DesignWrite reedited the articles and sent them to selected scientific journals, many of which carried advertising praising the same drugs.   Voila!  Scientific articles under prestigious names praising the companyÕs products appeared in many major scientific publications.

         About 126 million Prempro prescriptions were written in 2001.  Far fewer were inked after the government study of 2002, showing the drug caused breast cancer.  Despite WyethÕs efforts, fewer hormone replacement therapy pills have been used in the last six years, with new evidence that many thousands have been saved from breast cancer deaths. 

         Wyeth ghostwrote articles extolling Fen-Phen in the mid to late 1990s.  The deaths caused by that drug nearly sank the company.  

Enron Nation

         WyethÕs vigorous, sometimes ingenious use of scientists putting their names to company generated articles follows similar programs by other great American corporations. The case against global warming has received sustained support from energy companies, particularly Exxon, with hundreds of millions spent letting the public know itÕs all Òa great myth.Ó   Other ÒmythsÓ recently sold to the public include the Ògreat fundamental strength of the American economyÓ peddled by the Bush administration, the lack of wrongdoing at Enron, rock solid finances at Lehman Brothers, Countrywide Financial, AIG, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (space requires a very partial list,) and WMD's in Iraq plus close relations between Al Quaeda and Saddam Hussein ginned up by the Defense Department.  Observers of recent American history might conclude the American public much prefers lies to the truth. This growing difference between reality and government/corporate statements has now created a national ÒtruthinessÓ gap.

         Still, American health care, which costs $2.3 trillion a year to produce the health statistics of Cuba, suffers a smaller truthiness gap than other American institutions, like our financial corporations and executive branches of government.  Yet we see a way where, led by corporate exemplars like Wyeth, this health information truthiness gap can be powered up to the national norm if our Ethical Drugs Industry adopts a few ghostwritten articles and programs:

         1. Viagra Helps Prevent Crime.   Though millions of men no longer suffer in silence, little scientific attention has been paid to the tens of millions of American women who now enjoy sexual congress as frequently and intensely as their younger sisters.  We are sure that data proving Viagra decreases crime must exist somewhere, and if it is does not, can be plausibly manufactured. We invite company-marketing departments to write the articles and find suitable researchers to explain the extraordinary advantages to the public.

         2. Prozac To Save the Financial Industry. FinanciersÕ creation of multiple, linked exploding financial bubbles has provoked both economic and psychiatric depression across America.  Think of the public kudos if prozac were to be handed out, free of charge, to unemployed investment bankers, financial analysts, and mortgage brokers.  With sufficient use of SSRI's, the seeds of the next bull market might be laid. 

         3. Vice President Cheney to become spokesman for Purell.  CheneyÕs ability to disappear from public view and accountability while making some of the most important decisions of recent history will naturally increase his effectiveness as pitchman for Purell, the antibiotic hand solution he is said to use by the gallon.  With a ÒblindÓ trust fund alleged to be worth $1.7 billion, Cheney does not need the money, but could recover public stature. 

         4. Eli Lilly to hire Borat as its public ÒdiabetesÓ spokesman.  Eli LillyÕs many, many problems might quickly be alleviated by hiring Borat, whose easy, genial manner is just the kind of healing touch the drug company needs.  Kazakhstan suffers greatly from diabetes, a subject Borat could explicate to the American public with his trademark sincerity, plus lots of healthy nutritional and sexual advice. 

         No doubt you also would like to see other articles written to further Big PharmaÕs truthiness. Please send such suggestions to my email address, edlund@comcast.net, that other worthy examples might achieve public view. In this time of peril, we may need a pharmaceutical renaissance.

Dr. Matthew Edlund practices sleep medicine and psychiatry in Sarasota.  His new book, Designed To Last, is available online. He can be reached at 365-4308 and via his Web site at doctoredlund.com.