The very busy University of Wisconsin professor, doctor, inventor, industry consultant and medical journal editor Thomas Zdeblick makes UD wonder.
He makes her wonder how he does all that. I mean, he probably does a lot more… Let’s check his webpage…
Right. He also chairs an academic department.
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel looks into his editorship.
… Zdeblick took over editorship of the Journal of Spinal Disorders & Techniques seven years ago. Since then, studies involving Medtronic spinal products or that were funded by Medtronic appeared in the journal at least once per issue, on average.
Dozens of studies that mentioned Medtronic products [almost always in a positive way] have been published while Zdeblick has been editor. But in issue after issue, readers of the journal were not told that he was receiving millions of dollars in royalty payments from Medtronic at the same time.
… From 2003 through 2007, Zdeblick got more than $19 million in royalty payments for spinal devices from Medtronic, according to a January 2009 letter by U.S. Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), who has been investigating payments to orthopedic surgeons by Medtronic. In 2008, Zdeblick got another $2 million from Medtronic from royalties and working as a consultant, according to UW records…
The editor of the British Medical Journal comments that “because he makes so much money from Medtronic royalties, he really should not be editing the journal at all.” The vice president of the Association for Ethics in Spine Surgery says what he’s doing represents an “assault on the integrity of medical practice.”
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Hold on though. Do you think Zdeblick actually edits the journal? Do you think he actually writes the pieces under his name that he publishes in the journal?
If you answered yes to these questions, you haven’t been paying attention to the subjects of scientific ghost writing and guest authorship.
I mean. I’m ready to believe Zdeblick is a superman. But – soyons raisonnable.
December 26th, 2009 at 11:19AM
Is this really about money? The guy’s getting patent royalties, which means he thought something up. And he likes it, and believes in it. And he pushes it in a journal he edits.
This happens all the time, in almost every field — it’s just that the market doesn’t value most contributions to (say) literary criticism so highly.
Of course, it might all be terribly corrupt; I just don’t think money is necessarily the measure of corruption.
December 26th, 2009 at 12:45PM
The spectacle of editors using medical journals as their private preserves is not unusual. Take Charles Nemeroff, who recently exited Emory University. He edited Neuropsychopharmacology from 2002 through 2006. The annual rate at which the journal published articles he authored is 6-fold higher for the years he was editor compared to the non-editor years. This pattern of self dealing is compounded by product placements for his corporate clients like Cyberonics and Janssen. An article he authored touting Cyberonics cost him the editorship and another touting a Janssen drug contained false claims that were retracted under pressure.
December 26th, 2009 at 3:03PM
Mr Punch: I doubt it happens in every field – not at this level, with this degree of overt corruption.
My primary interest in all of this, in any case, is the university. If the medical field generally wants to be corrupt, that’s its business. I don’t think the university should whore along. This man doesn’t need a university affiliation. It only weighs him down and makes his university look bad.
June 15th, 2010 at 9:59AM
[...] the similarly overburdened and morally compromised Thomas Zdeblick at the University of Wisconsin, Daniel Berger is trying to do too much. He’s doing too many [...]