Ghostwriters: Not Always What They Appear

DeBakey, Lois

doi:10.1001/jama.1995.03530110032018

Cited by 8 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 1 publication

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“…Medical writing support is often funded by industry and, as a result, has sometimes attracted controversy. 35 36 There is no place for ghostwriting (ie, the unacknowledged use of medical writers) in manuscript development. According to the results of surveys, the overwhelming majority of authors (84–88%) valued the assistance provided by professional medical writers, in particular in editing manuscripts and ensuring conformity with reporting guidelines such as CONSORT.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Professional medical writing support and the quality of randomised controlled trial reporting: a cross-sectional study

et al. 2016

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ObjectivesAuthors may choose to work with professional medical writers when writing up their research for publication. We examined the relationship between medical writing support and the quality and timeliness of reporting of the results of randomised controlled trials (RCTs).DesignCross-sectional study.Study samplePrimary reports of RCTs published in BioMed Central journals from 2000 to 16 July 2014, subdivided into those with medical writing support (n=110) and those without medical writing support (n=123).Main outcome measuresProportion of items that were completely reported from a predefined subset of the Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials (CONSORT) checklist (12 items known to be commonly poorly reported), overall acceptance time (from manuscript submission to editorial acceptance) and quality of written English as assessed by peer reviewers. The effect of funding source and publication year was examined.ResultsThe number of articles that completely reported at least 50% of the CONSORT items assessed was higher for those with declared medical writing support (39.1% (43/110 articles); 95% CI 29.9% to 48.9%) than for those without (21.1% (26/123 articles); 95% CI 14.3% to 29.4%). Articles with declared medical writing support were more likely than articles without such support to have acceptable written English (81.1% (43/53 articles); 95% CI 67.6% to 90.1% vs 47.9% (23/48 articles); 95% CI 33.5% to 62.7%). The median time of overall acceptance was longer for articles with declared medical writing support than for those without (167 days (IQR 114.5–231 days) vs 136 days (IQR 77–193 days)).ConclusionsIn this sample of open-access journals, declared professional medical writing support was associated with more complete reporting of clinical trial results and higher quality of written English. Medical writing support may play an important role in raising the quality of clinical trial reporting.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Professional medical writing support and the quality of randomised controlled trial reporting: a cross-sectional study

et al. 2016

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“…Many academics in other fields would consider the use of trade writers to draft learned text an affront to scholarship, but medical journals and the ICMJE have embraced the practice, on the basis that writing is supposedly a technical, not an intellectual task. Perhaps the most signal exchange occurred in 1995 in JAMA, which though 20 years old merits quotation [ 36 ]. DeBakey and DeBakey defended the traditional scholarly perspective that writing is an intellectual task, such that trade writers should have no place in learned literature: There is a clear distinction between minor editing and ghostwriting; the first involves inconsiderable changes, the second composing… Writing a competent medical report requires thinking logically, analyzing data rigorously and interpreting them critically, organizing relevant material coherently, and presenting results in a lucid form.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The ICMJE Recommendations and pharmaceutical marketing – strengths, weaknesses and the unsolved problem of attribution in publication ethics

Matheson¹

2016

BMC Med Ethics

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BackgroundThe International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) Recommendations set ethical and editorial standards for article publication in most leading medical journals. Here, I examine the strengths and weaknesses of the Recommendations in the prevention of commercial bias in industry-financed journal literature, on three levels – scholarly discourse, article content, and article attribution.DiscussionWith respect to overall discourse, the most important measures in the ICMJE Recommendations are for enforcing clinical trial registration and controlling duplicate publication. With respect to article content, the ICMJE promotes stringent author accountability and adherence to established reporting standards. However, the ICMJE accepts the use of commercial editorial teams to produce manuscripts, which is a potential source of bias, and accepts private company ownership and analysis of clinical trial data. New ICMJE guidance on data sharing will address but not eliminate problems of commercial data access. With respect to attribution, the Recommendations oppose guest authorship and encourage clear documentation of author contributions. However, they exclude writers from coauthorship; provide no specific advice on the attribution of commercial literature, for instance with respect to company authorship, author sequence or prominent commercial labeling; and endorse the use of fine print and euphemism. The ICMJE requires detailed author interest disclosures, but overlooks the interests of non-authors and companies, and does not recommend that interests most salient to the publication are highlighted. Together, these weaknesses facilitate “advocacy”-based marketing, in which literature planned, financed and produced by companies is fronted by academics, enabling commercial messages to be presented to customers by their respected clinical peers rather than companies themselves.ConclusionsThe ICMJE Recommendations set important research and reporting standards, without which commercial bias would likely be a significantly greater problem than it is today. However, they also support practices of commercial data control, content development and attribution that run counter to science’s values of openness, objectivity and truthfulness. These weaknesses could be addressed with appropriate modifications to the Recommendations. The ICMJE should also disclose its own commercial interests and funding – not least because publishing organizations that finance it and pay the salaries of some member editors derive substantial revenues from industry.

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“…In 1994-95, JAMA editors Rennie and Flanagin argued that writer "assistance" did not deserve coauthorship but called for writers to be credited in the acknowledgments. [24][25][26] They recommended disclosure as a remedy for the involvement of writers but did not consider its conspicuity. Rennie and Flanagin still referred to writers who had been acknowledged as "ghosts," but in subsequent commentaries by other editors, published during a period of dialogue with industry, the idea that disclosure would be sufficient to remove the "ghost" label from a writer strengthened.…”

Section: Roots Of Rebrandingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…3 30 The dialogue led to increasing familiarity between editors and industry, collaborations, guidelines for the writing trade, and in due course, greater industry representation within editorial societies considering these matters. [15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34] The pharmaceutical publications industry began serious efforts to improve transparency in 2004-5, in response to mounting public concern about trade practices. The European Medical Writers Association introduced guidelines distancing itself from the term ghostwriting, two publications trade associations were formed, and contemporaneously with the developments in editorial thought described above, the trade began to promote a distinction between "professional medical writers," who were disclosed, and "ghostwriters," who were not.…”

Section: Roots Of Rebrandingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ghostwriting: the importance of definition and its place in contemporary drug marketing

Matheson¹

2016

BMJ

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Ghostwriters: Not Always What They Appear

Cited by 8 publications

References 1 publication

Professional medical writing support and the quality of randomised controlled trial reporting: a cross-sectional study

Professional medical writing support and the quality of randomised controlled trial reporting: a cross-sectional study

The ICMJE Recommendations and pharmaceutical marketing – strengths, weaknesses and the unsolved problem of attribution in publication ethics

Ghostwriting: the importance of definition and its place in contemporary drug marketing

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