It's being called "ghost authorship", the drug industry is trying to infiltrate medical literature with its own analyses and interpretations of research, dressed up as objective science.
"Respected journals have received manuscripts apparently written by research scientists that editors have discovered to have been written by drug companies, or carried the results of trials that have been designed by the companies, or based on their statistical analyses, a practice known as ghost authorship.
"Researchers are not concerned when companies co-author papers but believe that the relationship between a company and the authorship of a paper should be made transparent.
"A study published today in the journal Public Library of Science Medicine found evidence of ghost authorship for three quarters of 44 industry-initiated trials from Denmark in the 1990s.
"The authors conclude that "ghost authorship in industry-initiated randomised trials is very common, and we believe that this practice serves commercial purposes". They suggest the implementation of guidelines.
Big-Pharma is one of the most troubling issues facing the West today. From wooing practising doctors with valuable perks to infiltrating research and scientific publication to outright 'buying' political influence, the pharmaceutical industry literally screams for effective oversight.
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