Ghost authors common in medical research papers-study

LONDON, Jan 16 (Reuters) Drug companies initiating clinical trials often use ghost authors and medical writers whose contributions are not credited in the research papers, Danish scientists said today.

This practice could be reduced by greater transparency and stricter rules that insist everyone who has worked on or contributed to a medical trial is named.

''Ghost authorship is common but it is often kept secret because it is in the interest of both the industry and the academic authors who lend their names to papers they have had very little or, in some cases, nothing to do with,'' Peter Gotzsche, of the Nordic Cochrane Centre in Copenhagen, Denmark, said in an interview.

The names of authors and researchers are omitted from the published research papers because this may serve the commercial interests of the company sponsoring the trial.

''We have seen again and again that the conclusions in trial reports and other types of articles are given a spin by industry so that the conclusions are too positive compared to the data presented,'' Gotzsche said.

''It is very important for the industry to get messages out that are useful for their marketing departments,'' he added.

Lending their name to a study can be beneficial for researchers because it raises their profile and the number of published studies they are linked to.

Gotzsche and a team of international researchers believe that unless the role of all the authors is set out in the research paper, people reading the study will not be able accurately to judge or trust its conclusions.

The scientists analysed 44 trials approved by Danish ethics committees in 1994-1995 in the first systematic examination of ghost authorship. One of the studies had been initiated by a local company and 43 by one of 26 multinational drug companies.

The researchers identified 33 trials with ghost authors. In 31 of them the ghost writer was a statistician -- the person who analysed the trial data.

''The findings also suggest that journals should not only list the authors of each paper but describe what each author has done, so that the published information accurately reflects what has been carried out,'' said Gotzsche, whose findings are published in the medical journal PLoS Medicine.

He and his colleagues also recommended that research protocols be made publicly available so that scientists know what trials are being planned and who will conduct them.

REUTERS PKS BST0456