Ghost-writing
In early August – while I was on vacation, thus my slow return to blog posting – my friend Chris MacDonald at the BusinessEthicsBlog posted the following blog entry about Wyeth, ‘Ghost-Writing’ and Conflict of Interest.
Briefly, ghost-writing is when scientific articles (usually about the results of clinical trials) are written by technical writers (often working for the pharmaceutical industry) and then “authored” by an academic scientist who is paid to have their name put on a paper they didn’t write. This type of misleading authorship raises huge concerns about the validity of scientific studies being reported in the academic press, and has been subject to much critique in the scientific community. Not only does it undermine the credibility of the scientists involved when such false authorship is discovered (careers can be destroyed), it raises questions about the confidence that other scientists, and the general public, should have in the academic publication process.
There’s a Canadian (and Montreal) angle to the story about the pharmaceutical company Wyeth using ghost-writers and paying scientists for publications, specifically regarding a researcher at McGill University who admitted to being paid to put her name to an article she did not write:
- Closer ties emerge in HRT scandal – Toronto Star
- Recherche médicale: la belle affaire! – Le Devoir
- Taking their medicine – Montreal Gazette
- Prevalence of ghostwriting spurs calls for transparency – Canadian Medical Association Journal