A long-delayed academic paper analysing use of multiple sclerosis drugs failed to disclose all of the authors who worked on it, sparking fresh concerns over the practice of “ghost writing” in medical journals.
Karen Facey, a researcher, was commissioned in September 2007 to prepare a paper for the British Medical Journal on the government-backed “risk sharing scheme” for MS treatment and commented on subsequent drafts, but was not cited either as an author or a contributor in the final version published last December.
The issue has come to light at a time of growing efforts by medical journals to clamp down on “ghost writing”, the process by which medical writers prepare draft papers often on behalf of pharmaceutical companies, and then find academics willing to lend credibility by adding their names to the work…