Excerpts from the comment thread of a New York Times article about ghostwriting among medical school professors.
Launch budgets can easily exceed $300 to $500 million. Madison Avenue firms write the ghost articles, drug reps target regional physician ‘opinion leaders’ who are compensated in creative ways to put their names on the articles. Later the drug reps coordinate numerous speaking opportunities for the ‘opinion leaders.’ A single rep might in a two to three day event usher the ‘opinion leader’ through 10 or so physician offices to speak directly to the ‘script writers’ in the rep’s territory. During the evening hours the ‘opinion leader’ addresses large gatherings of ‘script writers’ at dinners.
The really interesting thing is that the ‘opinion leader’ generally reads from a pre-written script and a deck of PowerPoint slides with which he has almost no familiarity. It is supposed to be his research. I have literally witnessed ‘opinion leaders’ read directly from the slides prepared in advance by the drug maker, then not be able to answer reasonable questions based on what he has read.
What is most striking is that no one in the audience seems to be shaken by this.
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Most physicians are barely literate and could not write a grammatical paragraph if their lives depended on it. As one friend of mine has said, “If you take out the writers, the medical literature would be gibberish.”
They also don’t have the time to do much writing. Medical writers are just writers — much like corporate or political speechwriters — who help the author get the words on the paper.
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Regardless of their technical brilliance, many medical and scientific professionals are poor writers. They need help to write well-organized, comprehensible journal articles.
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When a professor is handed a manuscript and they make a few phone calls or minor corrections, they have not met the standard of ownership. Placement of their name on the paper, and in some of these papers as the only name, is claiming property rights that have not been earned and is a form of plagiarism. It is up to their university to enforce the rules on academic misconduct and take appropriate action. If a few full Professors were stripped of their tenure, you would see this malignant process grind to a quick halt.
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That this could be considered acceptable and even the norm in academic medicine is an indication of the depth of corruption of the medical schools in the U.S.******************************
August 20th, 2009 at 4:51AM
Having read the NYT’s piece on ghostwriting and Carl Elliot’s quote, I certainly agree that nothing will ever change if these academic professors/researchers are never held accountable. Having spent a great deal of time following Dr. Charles Schulz’s escapades at the University of Minnesota, he has been able to make a career out of signing his name to publications and gotten paid for "his" presentations at numerous conventions, most of which he never wrote or at times participated in any of the research. A simple "google" search of pubmed or AstraZeneca speaks volumes about the ethics and accuracy of most of his publications.
August 20th, 2009 at 5:39AM
I think authorship requires a "significant intellectual contribution," realizing very well that even this definition leaves a lot of wiggle room.
Unfortunately, this does NOT seem to be the standard in practice at many medical schools. Dr Chef’s name often appears on papers that he may not ever have seen. People who contribute materials are "paid" by authorship.
And re Dr. Schulz, I simply note that this is not his first appearance on the pages of University Diaries.
August 20th, 2009 at 8:47AM
Yes, the official requirement for "authorship" in the Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts of the International Committee of Medical Journal editors is a three part test:
Authorship credit should be based on 1) substantial contributions to conception and design, acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data; 2) drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content; and 3) final approval of the version to be published. Authors should meet conditions 1, 2, and 3.
(From http://www.icmje.org/)
Of course, when you see articles with 70+ "authors" you have to wonder about enforcement of those standards.
August 20th, 2009 at 10:19AM
You don’t have to look as far away as the med school to find this sort of thing. I’ve seen functionally illiterate English faculty getting extensive, uncredited developmental editing from grad students, hired editors, etc.–and using that help to secure tenure, promotion, publication, and elite jobs.
August 20th, 2009 at 10:41AM
All too true, Erin.