Public Justice represented PLoS Medicine, a medical journal published by the non-profit Public Library of Science, in its effort to intervene in this case to gain access to discovery materials that allegedly demonstrate that Wyeth Pharmaceutical Company engaged in medical ghostwriting to promote its hormone replacement therapy drug, Prempro.
A National Institute of Health study found that Prempro increases a woman’s risk of stroke, heart attack, blood clots, cardiovascular disease, and cancer. During the course of discovery in a case filed on behalf of women who have been injured by Prempro, Wyeth produced a "mammoth" amount of material showing that the company routinely failed to disclose its role in preparing medical journal articles promoting Prempro as safe and recruiting academic authors to put their names on the articles for publication.
At Public Justice’s urging, a federal district court judge in Arkansas unsealed the documents and made them available to the public. PLos Medicine used the documents to publish an investigative piece about the dangers of ghostwriting in medical publications, and to urge reform in this area. For more information, visit PLoS Medicine’s page on ghostwriting.
Public Justice Senior Attorney Leslie Brueckner and former Public Justice Staff Attorney Amy Radon were lead counsel in the case, and Morgan "Chip" Welch, of Welch and Kitchens, LLC in North Little Rock, Ark., was co-counsel.
District Court Order Unsealing the Evidence (July 24, 2009)
Brief in Support of PLoS Medicine’s Motion to Seek Public Access to Discovery Materials (June 11, 2009)
Brief in Support of PLoS Medicine’s Motion to Intervene (June 11, 2009)
