Though the information came to light in connection with lawsuits over Vioxx, the practice is not unique to Merck. Ghostwriting medical research is common in the pharmaceutical industry, according to many insiders.

The standard should be clear for any scientist asked to lend name and credentials to an article, says Ruth Faden, director of the Hopkins bioethics institute, in an article published by BaltimoreSun.com.

"If I have not contributed in a significant intellectual way to the science being reported or the review of analysis being reported, then I ought not be an author of that manuscript," said Faden.

That seems to be a monumental understatement. Taking credit for the work of another has an unsavory name in academic circles. It's called "plagiarism," and it can earn a student a failing grade -- or expulsion.

Journalists who fail to properly attribute sources can lose their jobs and irreparably damage their reputations.

Yet, call it "ghostwriting," and the same shameful and deceitful practice suddenly takes on an aura of respectability -- and lines the pockets of the people involved.

If it were merely dishonest, it would be one thing. In the case of medical research, however, the lives of others are at stake.

The issue has taken on graver importance because the US Food and Drug Administration is considering whether to allow the dissemination of articles that appear in peer-reviewed journals to physicians as tools to guide them in deciding whether or not to prescribe a particular drug to a patient for an off-label use.

The bottom line is that virtually everything published about a particular drug could originate with the manufacturer.

The new FDA proposal requires that articles published in peer-reviewed journals not be misleading, according to The New York Times.

It strikes me as both appalling and sad that such a requirement should have to be articulated.

Send your comments to Rita Jenkins.

From Frederick D. Lazar:

As a former instructor at a major East coast university, I read your article and was stunned to learn of the practice.

Although I have been long aware of professors who put their names as first authors on graduate students' work -- which is sometimes the only way to secure a grant -- at least the professors are deeply involved in the process; making sure that the work that goes out will not sully his/her own reputation.

The implication from your article is that the putative authors simply rubber stamp the work without reviewing the procedures followed or the integrity of the research process.

However, if what you are actually reporting on is a means of transforming virtually unreadable jargon into intelligible prose, that is another matter.

In my own field, there has been a cry from academics for decades that decision-makers do not use the valuable research which they produce. Having been in both camps (academic and decision-maker), the reason for this is often quite straightforward -- language. Researchers are not writers for public, or even sometimes, educated consumption.

The whole framing of a research document typically leaves the reader with a heroic "leap of faith" between the contents and his/her discrete issue. On top of that, knowledge concerning the implications of the statistical methodology utilized is typically not within an MDs purview.

So, if the purpose of the "ghost-writers" is to turn solid research into intelligible prose that has utility to the recipients, then it is not a bad practice. This transformation from research data/findings into information is requisite. However, if the doctors have not been involved in the research and are simply affixing their names in order to confer false credibility to findings in which they have played no role -- then the practice is reprehensible and should be prohibited rather than codified.

Posted on 4-24-2008

From Dave Zook:

It would be very unlikely to have a "ghost" paper accepted and published in a peer review publication. They are published in "pay per page" throwaway journals.

Posted on 4-24-2008

From an Anonymous Reader:

The culture of scientific publishing has for some years been morally bankrupt. Go to any university science department and check the names put on publications. Most listed authors have never read "their" papers, much less made any intellectual contribution. The ruse is blessed by heads of departments and others who get publication points towards their annual evaluation credit. For cultural reasons, this is accentuated these days among departments where foreign graduate students and postdoc researchers predominate.

Posted on 4-27-2008