Claire Nicholson broached this subject in the article: "Ethical reflections: how to solve a problem like… ghostwriting" and started from defining it as ‘the unacknowledged influence of a pharmaceutical company or industry-sponsored medical writer in a published article whereby the reader would assume that the article is written by independent academics’.Why does it matter? Well, at the most basic level it goes against the Declaration of Helsinki, Basic principles for all medical research (1964) which notes that “Authors.. are accountable for the completeness and accuracy of their reports…Sources of funding, institutional affiliations and conflicts of interest should be declared in the publication.”
Claire also provided few references for further reading: a piece in Guardian and an article in Plos, unanimously stated that scientists credited on ghostwritten articles should be charged with fraud.
Fiona Godlee, editor of the British Medical Journal, said the practice continues to be a problem in the medical literature.
"Guest authorship and ghostwriting is absolutely unacceptable and we have been saying this for a long time. It is misleading, a form of fraud, and it would be good to see much stiffer penalites and legal liabilities for people who involve themselves in this."
"The benefits of being a guest author are still substantial. You get a piece of work under your name that you didn't have to bother writing, the company involved will push to get it published in a high-profile journal, and visibility, promotion and all sorts of things come your way, not to mention international travel and speaking at conferences."
"It's a prostitution of their academic standing. And it undermines the integrity of the entire academic publication system".For further reading, I would recommend a more detailed article by Rebecca Aris "Can increased transparency lead to trust in the industry?"
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