Objectives To assess the prevalence of honorary and ghost authors in six leading general medical journals in 2008 and compare this with the prevalence reported by authors of articles published in 1996.

ROFESSIONAL MEDICAL ASSOCIAtions (PMAs), bringing together physicians in the same specialty or subspecialty, make many distinctive contributions to advancing the quality of medical care. In the first instance, PMAs play a vital role in medical education. Their meetings, publications, journals, and continuing medical education (CME) courses inform members of new and established diagnostic and treatment procedures. The PMAs also issue detailed practice guidelines that set the standards for efficient and effective patient care. Moreover, PMAs define ethical norms for their members, promulgating codes of conduct for professional behavior. At the same time, PMAs pursue a public agenda. They advocate for the particular interests of their members, for patients, and for what they believe to be the best interests of society. [1][2][3]

Access to medical information via the Internet has the potential to speed the transformation of the patient-physician relationship from that of physician authority ministering advice and treatment to that of shared decision making between patient and physician. However, barriers impeding this transformation include wide variations in quality of content on the Web, potential for commercial interests to influence online content, and uncertain preservation of personal privacy. To address these issues, the American Medical Association (AMA) has developed principles to guide development and posting of Web site content, govern acquisition and posting of online advertising and sponsorship, ensure site visitors' and patients' rights to privacy and confidentiality, and provide effective and secure means of e-commerce. While these guidelines were developed for the AMA Web sites and visitors to these sites, they also may be useful to other providers and users of medical information on the Web. These principles have been developed with the understanding that they will require frequent revision to keep pace with evolving technology and practices on the Internet. The AMA encourages review and feedback from readers, Web site visitors, policymakers, and all others interested in providing reliable quality information via the Web.

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