Strong, evidence-based practice requires that objective, unbiased research is available to inform individual clinical decisions, systematic reviews, meta-analyses, and expert guideline recommendations. Seeding trials, publication planning, messaging, and ghostwriting, as well as selective publication and reporting of trial outcomes have been used by industry to distort the medical literature and undermine clinical trial research, explicitly by obscuring information that is relevant to patients and physicians. Policies that promote transparency into the clinical trial research process, through improved and expanded disclosure of investigator contributions and funding, comprehensive publicly-available trial registration, and independent analysis of clinical trial data, have the potential to address these subversive practices by improving accountability among industry and investigators. Minimizing the impact of marketing on clinical trial research, and strengthening the science, will protect both the integrity of the medical literature as well as the public’s health.