The drug company Wyeth used ghostwriters to emphasize the benefits and downplay the harm of hormone replacement therapy in medical journal articles.
Wyeth, now owned by Pfizer, paid a company called DesignWrite $25,000 to ghostwrite articles on clinical studies, including four regarding Prempro, the company's combination estrogen-progestin therapy.
Reuters reports:
“... [T]he articles were intended to mitigate concerns that hormone replacement therapy raises the risk of breast cancer, and to support the unfounded idea that the drugs offer some protection against heart disease.”