Honorary and ghost authorship in high impact biomedical journals: a cross sectional survey

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Abstract

Objectives To assess the prevalence of honorary and ghost authors in six leading general medical journals in 2008 and compare this with the prevalence reported by authors of articles published in 1996.

Design Cross sectional survey using a web based questionnaire.

Setting International survey of journal authors.

Participants Sample of corresponding authors of 896 research articles, review articles, and editorial/opinion articles published in six general medical journals with high impact factors in 2008: Annals of Internal Medicine, JAMA, Lancet, Nature Medicine, New England Journal of Medicine, and PLoS Medicine.

Main outcome measures Self reported compliance with International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) criteria for authorship for all authors on the selected articles.

Results A total of 630/896 (70.3%) corresponding authors responded to the survey. The prevalence of articles with honorary authorship or ghost authorship, or both, was 21.0% (95% CI 18.0% to 24.3%), a decrease from 29.2% reported in 1996 (P=0.004). Based on 545 responses on honorary authorship, 96 articles (17.6% (95% CI 14.6% to 21.0%)) had honorary authors (range by journal 12.2% to 29.3%), a non-significant change from 1996 (19.3%; P=0.439). Based on 622 responses on ghost authorship, 49 articles (7.9% (6.0% to 10.3%)) had ghost authors (range by journal 2.1% to 11.0%), a significant decline from 1996 (11.5%; P=0.023). The prevalence of honorary authorship was 25.0% in original research reports, 15.0% in reviews, and 11.2% in editorials, whereas the prevalence of ghost authorship was 11.9% in research articles, 6.0% in reviews, and 5.3% in editorials.

Conclusions Evidence of honorary and ghost authorship in 21% of articles published in major medical journals in 2008 suggests that increased efforts by scientific journals, individual authors, and academic institutions are essential to promote responsibility, accountability, and transparency in authorship, and to maintain integrity in scientific publication.

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Rapid planetesimal formation in turbulent circumstellar discs

Anders Johansen, Jeffrey S. Oishi, Mordecai-Mark Mac Low … (2007)

The initial stages of planet formation in circumstellar gas discs proceed via dust grains that collide and build up larger and larger bodies (Safronov 1969). How this process continues from metre-sized boulders to kilometre-scale planetesimals is a major unsolved problem (Dominik et al. 2007): boulders stick together poorly (Benz 2000), and spiral into the protostar in a few hundred orbits due to a head wind from the slower rotating gas (Weidenschilling 1977). Gravitational collapse of the solid component has been suggested to overcome this barrier (Safronov 1969, Goldreich & Ward 1973, Youdin & Shu 2002). Even low levels of turbulence, however, inhibit sedimentation of solids to a sufficiently dense midplane layer (Weidenschilling & Cuzzi 1993, Dominik et al. 2007), but turbulence must be present to explain observed gas accretion in protostellar discs (Hartmann 1998). Here we report the discovery of efficient gravitational collapse of boulders in locally overdense regions in the midplane. The boulders concentrate initially in transient high pressures in the turbulent gas (Johansen, Klahr, & Henning 2006), and these concentrations are augmented a further order of magnitude by a streaming instability (Youdin & Goodman 2005, Johansen, Henning, & Klahr 2006, Johansen & Youdin 2007) driven by the relative flow of gas and solids. We find that gravitationally bound clusters form with masses comparable to dwarf planets and containing a distribution of boulder sizes. Gravitational collapse happens much faster than radial drift, offering a possible path to planetesimal formation in accreting circumstellar discs.

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Prevalence of articles with honorary authors and ghost authors in peer-reviewed medical journals.

John Lundberg, A Flanagin, Mariko L Carey … (1998)

Authorship in biomedical publications establishes accountability, responsibility, and credit. Misappropriation of authorship undermines the integrity of the authorship system, but accurate data on its prevalence are limited. To determine the prevalence of articles with honorary authors (named authors who have not met authorship criteria) and ghost authors (individuals not named as authors but who contributed substantially to the work) in peer-reviewed medical journals and to identify journal characteristics and article types associated with such authorship misappropriation. Mailed, self-administered, confidential survey. A total of 809 corresponding authors (1179 surveyed, 69% response rate) of articles published in 1996 in 3 peer-reviewed, large-circulation general medical journals (Annals of Internal Medicine, JAMA, and The New England Journal of Medicine) and 3 peer-reviewed, smaller-circulation journals that publish supplements (American Journal of Cardiology, American Journal of Medicine, and American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology). Prevalence of articles with honorary authors and ghost authors, as reported by corresponding authors. Of the 809 articles, 492 were original research reports, 240 were reviews and articles not reporting original data, and 77 were editorials. A total of 156 articles (1 9%) had evidence of honorary authors (range, 11%-25% among journals); 93 articles (11%) had evidence of ghost authors (range, 7%-16% among journals); and 13 articles (2%) had evidence of both. The prevalence of articles with honorary authors was greater among review articles than research articles (odds ratio [OR], 1.8; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.2-2.6) but did not differ significantly between large-circulation and smaller-circulation journals (OR, 1.4; 95% CI, 0.96-2.03). Compared with similar-type articles in large-circulation journals, articles with ghost authors in smaller-circulation journals were more likely to be reviews (OR, 4.2; 95% CI, 1.5-13.5) and less likely to be research articles (OR, 0.49; 95% CI, 0.27-0.88). A substantial proportion of articles in peer-reviewed medical journals demonstrate evidence of honorary authors or ghost authors.

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Guest authorship and ghostwriting in publications related to rofecoxib: a case study of industry documents from rofecoxib litigation.

Joseph Ross, Kevin P Hill, David Egilman … (2008)

Authorship in biomedical publication provides recognition and establishes accountability and responsibility. Recent litigation related to rofecoxib provided a unique opportunity to examine guest authorship and ghostwriting, practices that have been suspected in biomedical publication but for which there is little documentation. To characterize different types and the extent of guest authorship and ghostwriting in 1 case study. Court documents originally obtained during litigation related to rofecoxib against Merck & Co Inc. Documents were created predominantly between 1996 and 2004. In addition, publicly available articles related to rofecoxib identified via MEDLINE. All documents were reviewed by one author, with selected review by coauthors, using an iterative process of review, discussion, and rereview of documents to identify information related to guest authorship or ghostwriting. Approximately 250 documents were relevant to our review. For the publication of clinical trials, documents were found describing Merck employees working either independently or in collaboration with medical publishing companies to prepare manuscripts and subsequently recruiting external, academically affiliated investigators to be authors. Recruited authors were frequently placed in the first and second positions of the authorship list. For the publication of scientific review papers, documents were found describing Merck marketing employees developing plans for manuscripts, contracting with medical publishing companies to ghostwrite manuscripts, and recruiting external, academically affiliated investigators to be authors. Recruited authors were commonly the sole author on the manuscript and offered honoraria for their participation. Among 96 relevant published articles, we found that 92% (22 of 24) of clinical trial articles published a disclosure of Merck's financial support, but only 50% (36 of 72) of review articles published either a disclosure of Merck sponsorship or a disclosure of whether the author had received any financial compensation from the company. This case-study review of industry documents demonstrates that clinical trial manuscripts related to rofecoxib were authored by sponsor employees but often attributed first authorship to academically affiliated investigators who did not always disclose industry financial support. Review manuscripts were often prepared by unacknowledged authors and subsequently attributed authorship to academically affiliated investigators who often did not disclose industry financial support.

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Author and article information

Contributors

: Role: survey research specialist, JAMA

: Role: managing deputy editor, JAMA

: Role: executive editor, JAMA

: Role: editor emerita, JAMA

Journal

Journal ID (nlm-ta): BMJ

Journal ID (publisher-id): bmj

Title: BMJ : British Medical Journal

Publisher: BMJ Publishing Group Ltd.

ISSN (Print): 0959-8138

ISSN (Electronic): 1468-5833

Publication date Collection: 2011

Publication date (Print): 2011

Publication date (Electronic): 25 October 2011

Volume: 343

Electronic Location Identifier: d6128

Affiliations

[1 ]American Medical Association, 515 N State Street, Chicago, Illinois 60654, USA

Author notes

Correspondence to: J S Wislar joseph.wislar@ 123456jama-archives.org

Article

Publisher ID: wisj840355

DOI: 10.1136/bmj.d6128

PMC ID: 3202014

PubMed ID: 22028479

SO-VID: 3bfc0adf-ee8f-4687-b413-6e2c6cb04e9f

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This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial License, which permits use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non commercial and is otherwise in compliance with the license. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/ and http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/legalcode.

Honorary and ghost authorship in high impact biomedical journals: a cross sectional survey

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Most cited references 15

Rapid planetesimal formation in turbulent circumstellar discs

Prevalence of articles with honorary authors and ghost authors in peer-reviewed medical journals.

Guest authorship and ghostwriting in publications related to rofecoxib: a case study of industry documents from rofecoxib litigation.

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