Healthy Skepticism Library item: 19304

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Publication type: Electronic Source

Silverman E
Boo! The NIH Grapples With Ghostwriting
Pharmalot 2011 Mar 2

Full text:

Last November, a watchdog group sent a letter to Francis Collins, who heads the National Institutes of Health, about four instances in which academics who received federal grants also used a ghostwriting firm to help publish studies, letters and even a book (back story). The missive was sent in hopes of encouraging the NIH to get tough on ghostwriting, an issue that has also plagued several drugmakers (see here, here and here).
Shortly afterwards, Collins confessed at being stunned that ghostwriting took place. “I was shocked by that revelation – that people would allow their names to be used on articles they did not write, that were written for them, particularly by companies that have something to gain by the way the data is presented….If we want to have the integrity of science preserved, that’s not the way to do it,” he told C-Span (watch the video here).
And so yesterday, the Project on Government Oversight watchdog released a response from Collins, who states the agency does not condone ghostwriting and, in fact, has authorship guidelines that effectively ban the process. Moreover, he writes that the NIH is in the process of revising rules governing conflicts of interest among grant recipients and, specifically, a reference is made to paid authorship (here is the notice for the proposled rule in the Federal Register).
“By including ‘paid authorship’ in the definition of ’significant financial interest’ in the proposed rule, the NIH is sending a clear message to institutions and investigators alike that we support the principles of transparency and accountability in research, and that institutions and investigators engaging in such activity may be subject to more rigorous disclosure and reporting,” Collins writes in his reply (look here). And he notes that violators could be referred to the Office of Research Integrity for plagiarism.
A investigator at the POGO watchdog, however, says the NIH rule may not go far enough if disclosure does not include payments made to outsiders who help with the preparation of an article. “I don’t think he realizes how extensive (ghostwriting) is. He seems to imply that maybe there are a few bad apples, but this is how medicine has been proceeding for a number of years and this is a common practice,” says POGO investigator Paul Thacker who, until recently, was an investigator for US Senator Chuck Grassley and spearheaded several investigations into the pharmaceutical industry.
“What he doesn’t understand are the subtleties – publications are the currency in academia. It doesn’t matter if the author gets paid or not, because publication, itself, is compensation. Articles are also used for gaining tenure and grants. They need to disclose all the money that goes into publication, all the money spent by a drugmaker to have an article published, not just what’s given a doctor.”
And to put Collins to the test, Thacker says POGO is currently investigating an instance that would, in his view, constitute plagiarism and the watchdog intends to release the information in the coming weeks. “Let’s see what happens then,” says Thacker.