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Ghost marketing: pharmaceutical companies and ghostwritten journal articles
1Center for Bioethics, N538 Boynton Health Service, Minneapolis, MN 55455, USA. moff0022@umn.edu
Perspectives in Biology and Medicine
|January 30, 2007
Summary
Scientific ghostwriting, where companies pay academics to publish favorable research, is unethical and harmful. This practice undermines public trust and scientific integrity, necessitating measures to discourage it.
Area of Science:
- Medical ethics
- Scientific publishing
- Pharmaceutical industry practices
Background:
- Increasing public scrutiny of industry-funded research.
- Prevalence of ghostwriting in scientific publications.
- Ethical concerns surrounding undisclosed authorship.
Purpose of the Study:
- To analyze the practice and ethics of scientific ghostwriting.
- To examine ghostwriting involving pharmaceutical companies and medical communication firms.
- To evaluate the justification of this practice against scientific authorship norms.
Main Methods:
- Literature review of ethical guidelines and case studies.
- Analysis of the specific model of pharmaceutical company hiring medical education and communications company.
- Ethical argumentation on the harms and justifications of ghostwriting.
Main Results:
- Identified a specific model of ghostwriting involving third-party companies and academic authors.
- Argued that this practice is harmful to the public and scientific institutions.
- Concluded that the practice is not justified by existing authorship standards.
Conclusions:
- Scientific ghostwriting, particularly industry-sponsored, poses significant ethical challenges.
- The practice erodes trust in scientific research and its institutions.
- Strategies are needed to effectively discourage and prevent scientific ghostwriting.
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