Are Medical Journals Haunted by "Ghost Writers"?
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Fellow blogger, Jacob Goldstein, over at the WSJ Health Blog posted a story today about a prominent hypertension researcher who was approached by a medical communications agency about putting her name on an abstract (she did not participate in the research) that was being prepared by the agency for a pharmaceutical client. According to the Health Blog, the researcher was so outraged by the offer that she decided to go public about the alleged “ghost writing” incident. I have no doubt that the story is accurate. That said, I think that a comment posted to WSJ’s blog about the story sums it all up nicely:
“So, this is some new revelation for the WSJ? There are plenty of studies in the medical literature which have been ghost written by an industry-sponsored medical writer, that was then submitted under the name of a highly-recognizable leader in the field–always at a steep price”.
As much as I hate to admit it, the person who posted the comment is right--sort of. Although ghost writing was commonplace in the medical communications industry as recently as a few years ago, the practice is no longer tolerated at most medcom agencies, and, perhaps more importantly, by the would-be authors whose names ultimately appear on the publications. That said, medcom agencies and their clients must remain vigilant in their attempts to eradicate ghost writing entirely so that all medical communications are written (and published) in the most scientifically-sound and ethical manner.
