What should be done to tackle ghostwriting in the medical literature?

Ghostwriting occurs when someone makes substantial contributions to a manuscript without attribution or disclosure. It is considered bad publication practice in the medical sciences, and some argue it is scientific misconduct. At its extreme, medical ghostwriting involves pharmaceutical companies hi...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:PLoS medicine 2009-02, Vol.6 (2), p.e23-e23
Main Authors: Gøtzsche, Peter C, Kassirer, Jerome P, Woolley, Karen L, Wager, Elizabeth, Jacobs, Adam, Gertel, Art, Hamilton, Cindy
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Authorship
Biomedical Research - ethics
Communication in science
Control
Debate
Disclosure - ethics
Editorial Policies
Ethical aspects
Ghostwriting
Humans
Laws, regulations and rules
Periodicals as Topic - ethics
Professional misconduct
Public Health and Epidemiology
Scientific Misconduct - ethics
The
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Summary:Ghostwriting occurs when someone makes substantial contributions to a manuscript without attribution or disclosure. It is considered bad publication practice in the medical sciences, and some argue it is scientific misconduct. At its extreme, medical ghostwriting involves pharmaceutical companies hiring professional writers to produce papers promoting their products but hiding those contributions and instead naming academic physicians or scientists as the authors. To improve transparency, many editors' associations and journals allow professional medical writers to contribute to the writing of papers without being listed as authors provided their role is acknowledged. This debate examines how best to tackle ghostwriting in the medical literature from the perspectives of a researcher, an editor, and the professional medical writer.
ISSN:1549-1676
1549-1277
1549-1676
DOI:10.1371/journal.pmed.1000023