Medical Authorship Guidelines (Provided by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors) Actually Facilitate Deceptively Presented Medical Research — says Industry Expert, Alastair Matheson

©2011 Peter Free

 

08 September 2011

 

 

When money’s to be made, avarice easily finds gaps in scientific integrity’s guardian fence

 

Alastair Matheson — who apparently derives portions of his income from the industry he is justifiably criticizing— recently explained how self-interested corporations bypass rigorous scientific standards and capable peer review.

 

These commercial entities take advantage of poorly thought-out authorship provisions provided by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors.  The corporations use the guidelines to facilitate scientific deception by intentionally misattributing levels of expertise and analysis in their research studies.

 

If we recognize that someone’s out to make a dollar, we are generally more cautious in our interpretation of their “science.”  That is why “honorable” scientific reputation is such a valuable commodity.

 

In this depressingly avaricious age, too many alleged scientists and medical researchers are willing to sell their heretofore unsullied science personas to the highest bidders.

 

Matheson synopsized his perspective:

 

Summary Points

 

Academic authorship boosts the credibility of industry publications and masks their commercial function.

 

Alongside traditional “guest authorship” and ghostwriting, industry may simply exaggerate the contribution of named academic authors and downplay that of commercial writers, who are excluded from authorship but listed as contributors in the small print.

 

Rather than obstructing industry, the current International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) authorship guidelines provide a ready tool for misattributing authorship. Industry also relies on selective interpretations of key authorship concepts.

 

The ICMJE guidelines should be fundamentally revised and the concept of origination given comparable importance to authorship and contributorship.

 

Companies and writers who work on industry publications should be listed as byline authors.

 

© 2011 Alastair Matheson, How Industry Uses the ICMJE Guidelines to Manipulate Authorship—And How They Should Be Revised, PLoS Medicine 8(8), doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.1001072 (August 2011)

 

More specifically, Matheson explained that:

 

From industry's perspective, the most useful feature of the current ICMJE guidelines is the formula used to distinguish between authors and contributors (Figure 1).

 

To qualify as an author, an individual must (1) contribute substantially to either conception and design, or acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data; and (2) draft the article or revise it critically for important intellectual content; and (3) be responsible for final approval of the manuscript.

 

This “triple-lock” formula has become a de facto license for misrepresentation. Provided academics make some contribution to design or data analysis, some revisions to a manuscript, and approve it, they are required to be named as authors.

 

By contrast, industry may conduct most of the design, data collection and analysis, and all the writing, but if sign-off is ceded to the academic, it is disqualified from authorship.

 

Unsurprisingly, the practice of ceding final sign-off to academic “authors” is widespread in commercially driven publications.

 

Notably, the ICMJE guidelines place great emphasis on the contributions of named individuals. This approach reflects traditional authorship customs, but assists unethical practices in two respects.

 

Firstly, it helps entities, and in particular companies, remain concealed, particularly if their authorial role involves many individuals, each of whom is only a minor contributor to the finished publication.

 

Secondly, it gives insufficient exposure to the process of origination by which publications are conceived and come into being—for commercially driven articles that exist to promote specific products, this information is vital to the reader.

 

© 2011 Alastair Matheson, How Industry Uses the ICMJE Guidelines to Manipulate Authorship—And How They Should Be Revised, PLoS Medicine 8(8), doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.1001072 (August 2011) (paragraph split)

 

 

Why scientific deception matters

 

In science, lying is bad.  It defeats the field’s truth-pursuing purpose.  Using supposedly honorable reputations to conceal lies is arguably ethically and socially worse.

 

The increasing burden of (not-so-obviously) bogus medical research makes it difficult for practitioners, and the expert panels that guide them, to separate truth from fiction.

 

When science itself is corrupt, what patient-oriented point is there to seeking “science-based” medicine?