It really looks like drug maker Wyeth paid ghostwriters to produce medical articles favorable to its hormone replacement therapy Prempro, according to Congressional letters seeking more information about the company's involvement in medical ghostwriting. For example, after a federal study found the drug raised the risk of breast cancer, a favorable article was published. The articles were published in peer-reviewed medical journals, involving Prempro and other-female-hormone-replacement therapies made by Wyeth.

Sen. Charles Grassley asked the companies to disclose payments he said were made to prepare certain articles and for information about how doctors were recruited to place their names on those articles. In order to examine these documents, the committee collected internal Wyeth documents obtained during civil legal actions involving Prempro. Sen. Grassley described ghostwritten manuscripts as those written or heavily developed by other, beyond the scientists named as primary authors on the manuscripts. As for Wyeth's part, the pharmaceutical company based in Madison, New Jersey, said it approaches scientists with ideas for articles and offers them the assistance of a professional medical writer. However, they say the scientists retain complete editorial control.

Amazing as it seems, this might not be the only case of ghostwriting practice. Sen. Grassley is checking other major pharmaceutical companies as well. Medical journals also have been scrutinized for several years for their role in maintaining scientific integrity for the papers they publish. In the letter Sen. Grassley sent to Wyeth Chairman and Chief Executive Bernard Poussot, he asks the company for all the information that could possibly help the investigators find the truth. It remains to be seen if they will manage do to that.