Medical Schools Quizzed on Ghostwriting

Source: NYTimes

November 18, 2009
Medical Schools Quizzed on Ghostwriting

By DUFF WILSON
Senator Charles E. Grassley wrote to 10 top medical schools Tuesday to ask what they are doing about professors who put their names on ghostwritten articles in medical journals — and why that practice was any different from plagiarism by students.

Mr. Grassley, of Iowa, the ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, sent the letters as part of his continuing investigation of so-called medical ghostwriting. The term refers to publication of medical journal articles in which an outside writer — sometimes paid by a drug or medical devices company whose product is being studied — has done extensive work on the article without being named on the publication. Instead, one or more academic researchers may receive author credit.

Mr. Grassley said ghostwriting had hurt patients and raised costs for taxpayers because it used prestigious academic names to promote medical products and treatments that might be expensive or less effective than viable alternatives.

“Any attempt to manipulate the scientific literature, which can in turn mislead doctors to prescribe treatments that may be ineffective and/or cause harm to their patients, is very troubling,” the senator wrote.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/18/business/18ghost.html?hp

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Yesterday, we were informed of the new mammogram study. Today, it's medical ghostwriting.

Hmmmm.

money. Oh, and greed. Can't forget the greed. They're paid handsomely for writing complete bullshit that they don't have to put their names on. I mean, who wouldn't? :eyes: Perhaps someone who actually read and understood the Hippocratic Oath? :shrug:

and a short cut to being published is more time spent with patients or doing something else. Publishing is an expectation in this profession. It's needed for career opportunities. We need incentives for doctors that positively impact patient care and health. This will require more than legislative change. It will require a change in the way people think. That can be a tough change for most people. Not impossible but tough, frustrating and difficult for most.

Can actually write a publishable article. Universities would have to hire the statisticians and collaborative writers, and I don't think they want to do that.

But what is happening now is a sham.

Can't help but wonder which staffer of Senator Charles E. Grassley "ghost wrote" the letter to the top ten medical schools. Agree on the plagerism charge, but it is getting ridiculous out there in university-land. Someone needs to create a "ratemyhonorcode.com" website as some of these schools are screwing their students (e.g, taking away all their credits for the semester, heaping on tons of hours of community service and making permanent notations on transcripts to ruin the students chances of attending grad school or getting government clearences) for simply forgetting to annotate a quote even when its source is included in the bibliography.