The drug industry has even managed to turn peer-reviewed scientific literature into a sophisticated marketing device. It has long been known that corporate-funded research studies are more likely than impartial studies to favor the products of their corporate sponsor. But only recently has evidence emerged to suggest how many "scientific" studies have actually been ghostwritten by specialized PR firms—"medical communications" agencies—that represent the drug industry. These firms then pay well-known academic researchers to sign on as authors. Often these academic researchers are not even allowed to see the raw data upon which the published studies are based.
