Advertising as Education: CME Part Deux

I had the good fortune to read the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry supplement which featured Dr. Henry Nasrallah (the author) sneaking in some friendly messages about ziprasidone (Gedon), the antipsychotic from Pfizer that has been dwarfed by its competitors such as Zyprexa, Seroquel, and Risperdal. The piece discusses the findings of the CATIE study, which compared several newer antipsychotics to an older medication, perphenazine, and generally found that the newer and older drugs were of roughly equal effectiveness and that olanzapine had the worst safety profile. I thank an alert reader for passing the article along.

CME Overview: The good news is that physicians can read this article and take a quiz as part of the continuing medical education (CME) that helps them maintain their licenses. The bad news is that these articles are often thinly veiled advertisements for a product or a message that supports a product.

Highlights: It is stated that the difference favoring olanzapine (Zyprexa) over ziprasidone in terms of efficacy was not significant after a statistical adjustment (granted, this seems like a legitimate argument). It then mentions that olanzapine had the worst metabolic profile in terms of effects on weight, blood glucose, glycosylated hemoglobin, cholesterol, and triglycerides. It then states “In contrast, patients treated with ziprasidone had the best overall metabolic profile.” It places some numbers in a table regarding the metabolic effects of the various drugs in the CATIE study but provides not a single statistical analysis (or reference to an analysis on CATIE data) backing its assertion that it is significantly better than all other drugs in terms of metabolic profile.

The piece then turns to a secondary phase of the CATIE study, in which patients who discontinued their medications in the first phase of CATIE were assigned to other medications. It mentions olanzapine weight gain then mentions that patients on ziprasidone lost weight. It then discusses weight loss on ziprasidone again, then moves on to ziprasidone being associated with decreases in cholesterol and triglycerides, whereas olanzapine was associated with gains in both of these measures.

In case readers have been sleep-reading through this piece, it then moves to state that “except for clozapine, olanzapine clearly caused the heaviest burden of metabolic side effects. Ziprasidone, on the other hand, was consistently associated with the most benign side effect profile.”

Then, the piece moves to scare the reader about older antipsychotics and their risk of inducing extrapyramidal symptoms [EPS]. “The clinician must carefully decide whether the lower cost of the typical antipsychotic is worth the potential striatal neurotoxicity manifested by acute extrapyramidal side effects and long-term TD [tardive dyskinesia].” Of course, he must be assuming that atypical antipsychotics never or rarely induce EPS, which appears to be wrong and that all older medications induce EPS at the same rate as Haldol, which is likewise incorrect (1, 2).

Overall Message: The bottom line message of the piece is clear. Geodon is safe; Zyprexa is unsafe. Don’t use older meds because they’ll cause EPS – ziprasidone won’t. In fact, Geodon is the safest of the second generation antipsychotics.

Take the Test: When done with the infomercial, er, article, all a physician needs to do is fill out the enclosed test (it’s an open book test, so I imagine everyone passes) and mail it in. Physicians can even complete the test online. [this section was taken directly from an earlier post]

Ghostwriter Watch. Who wrote the article? You tell me – I’m confused. Here’s what is written in the article…

This article is derived from the planning teleconference “Evaluating the Evidence: Clinical Antipsychotic Trials of Intervention Effectiveness (CATIE) and Beyond,” which was held on May 10, 2006, and was independently developed by the CME Institute of Physicians Postgraduate Press, Inc., and Health and Wellness Education Partners (HWeP) pursuant to an educational grant from Pfizer and addition support from HWP Publishing

Dr. Nasrallah is a consultant for, has received honoraria from, and been on the speakers/advisory boards for Abbott, AstraZeneca, Janssen, Pfizer, and Shire and has received grant/research support from AstraZeneca, Janssen, and Pfizer.

Content development and writing support for this article was provided in part by an independent writer contracted by HWeP: Martin Korn, M.D., a psychiatrist in private practice in New York.

I may be piecing this together wrong, but here goes… Pfizer writes a check to the CME Institute and HWeP. Nasrallah and a few other bigwigs engage in a conference call and are reimbursed (likely quite well) for their time. HWeP hires Martin Korn to write the piece, which then is reviewed, likely in a cursory manner at most, by Dr. Nasrallah. The piece is then reviewed by a member of the CME Advisory Board. These "reviews" appear to be consist of a race to grab the rubber stamp as quickly as possible.

I’m not sure if Pfizer provided the talking points directly to Dr. Korn, but it seems he got the message that Zyprexa and older meds should be slammed while Geodon should come across looking angelic. The CME Institute then stamps their approval and we call all be assured that doctors are being “educated” about the latest and greatest treatments in a purely objective fashion.

Please also feel free to read my earlier piece on CME. I recall seeing Dr. Korn's name on an earlier CME piece similar to this, but I can't seem to track it down.

Don't be confused -- I'm not defending Zyprexa. Geodon appears to be a safer drug than Zyprexa, but this quite thinly veiled advertisement that masquerades as independent education is ludicrous -- how does reading or watching commercials passing for "education" help physicians make better decisions for their patients?