Ghostwriting Revisited: New Perspectives but Few Solutions in Sight

doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.1001084

Abstract

Highlights

Over the past month PLoS Medicine has published three articles that bring new perspectives to the problem of ghostwriting. These perspectives and the possible remedies that two of them offer need serious consideration in light of two recent conferences [4,5] and other evidence suggesting that, in stark contrast to the protestations of many in the pharmaceutical and medical writing industries, ghostwriting and its larger relation, ghost-management, of the medical literature remain key tactics deployed by pharmaceutical companies, and that current attempts to reduce the practices are not succeeding
The first article, by Simon Stern and Trudo Lemmens [6], takes a novel legal perspective and suggests that legal sanctions could be applied. They argue that a ‘‘guest author’s claim for credit of an article written by someone else constitutes legal fraud’’ and that, in addition, ‘‘The same fraud could support claims of ‘fraud on the court’ against a pharmaceutical company that has used ghostwritten articles in litigation.’’ These are potentially very serious charges that could be laid at the door of ghost and guest authors and their employers
On the basis of over 20 years’ experience in the medical communications sector, he says that, in clear contrast to their intention, the authorship standards have been subverted and are being used by the pharmaceutical industry to make ghostwriting almost legitimate

Summary

Introduction

In an editorial [1] sparked by the revelations from PLoS Medicine and The New York Times’ intervention in litigation relating to Prempro [2], we wrote that ‘‘the story told in these documents amounts to one of the most compelling expositions ever seen of the systematic manipulation and abuse of scholarly publishing by the pharmaceutical industry and its commercial partners in their attempt to influence the health care decisions of physicians and the general public.’’ In the first scholarly examination of these documents, published late last year [3], Adriane Fugh-Berman concluded that ‘‘marketing messages in credible journals have almost certainly contributed to widespread use of hormone replacement therapy among millions of women who had no medical indication for the drug’’ – a statement that suggests the medical literature had been acting in direct contradiction of the first ethical rule of all physicians, to ‘‘first, do no harm.’’. Over the past month PLoS Medicine has published three articles that bring new perspectives to the problem of ghostwriting.

Results

Conclusion