Profits and plagiarism: The case of medical ghostwriting

Bioethics

Volumn 24, Issue 6, 2010, Pages 267-272

  Anekwe, Tobenna D ^a  

^a HARVARD SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH   (United States)

Author keywords

Ghostwriting; Honorary authors; Medical ethics; Pharmaceutical companies; Plagiarism; Public health; Research misconduct

Indexed keywords

ARTICLE; CONFLICT OF INTEREST; DRUG INDUSTRY; ETHICS; FACTUAL DATABASE; FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT; GOVERNMENT; GOVERNMENT REGULATION; HUMAN; INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATION; ORGANIZATION; PRACTICE GUIDELINE; PUBLICATION; PUBLISHING; SCIENTIFIC MISCONDUCT; STATISTICS; UNITED STATES; UNIVERSITY; WRITING; STATISTICS AND NUMERICAL DATA;

ACADEMIES AND INSTITUTES; AUTHORSHIP; CONFLICT OF INTEREST; CONTRACT SERVICES; DATABASES, FACTUAL; DISCLOSURE; DRUG INDUSTRY; EDITORIAL POLICIES; FEDERAL GOVERNMENT; GOVERNMENT REGULATION; GUIDELINES AS TOPIC; HUMANS; PERIODICALS AS TOPIC; PLAGIARISM; PUBLISHING; SCIENTIFIC MISCONDUCT; UNITED STATES; UNIVERSITIES; WRITING;

EID: 77955996742     PISSN: 02699702     EISSN: 14678519     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-8519.2008.00705.x     Document Type: Article

References (35)

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10. Multiauthor collaborations in science are fairly common, which may explain why some academics do not see the signing of a ghosted article as problematic. In his book chapter 'Rights or Rewards? Changing Frameworks of Scientific Authorship,' Mario Biagioli writes that'[S]cientific authorship is losing (or has already lost) its role as the containment vessel for credit and responsibility (and the vast problems posed by their definitions). The development of large-scale multiauthorship is directly responsible for that.' In Scientific Authorship: Credit and Intellectual Property in Science. 2003. M. Biagioli & P. Galison, eds. New York: Routledge: 253-279.]
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20. The strict interpretation of this rule is not always followed. Cases where a beneficent senior academic allows his or her junior to take full authorship credit for a paper on which they collaborated are not generally seen as a breach of the rule as long as the junior has fulfilled all authorship criteria. In any case, there is a big difference, ethically speaking, between that case and the case where a medical ghostwriter cedes authorship credit to the academic researcher. The former case is an altruistic act whereas the latter stems from industry sponsorship that simultaneously pays the medical writer and sabotages the medical literature by using it for covert marketing purposes.
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23. We need not compare honorary authorship to plagiarism to see that honorary authorship is problematic. There are larger reasons, such as medical ethics and scientific integrity, why honorary authorship for industry is problematic.However, the honorary authorship/plagiarism comparison may be very useful, particularly for institutions that already have explicit policies on plagiarism but lag behind when it comes to controlling honorary authorship. This paper points out that anti-plagiarism policies should also address the issue of honorary authorship because the issues are closely related.
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