The article on ghost writing of scientific peer-reviewed papers is excellent, and once again points out the dishonesty, misrepresentation, and fraud that takes place in the pharmaceutical industry/academia marriage. Unfortunately, this article, and most commentaries on ghost writing assume that the ghost written papers are skewed and scientifically biased, and the studies they try to counter are squeeky clean the gospel according to academia. In the case of Wyeth and hormone replacement therapy, a little mentioned component is that the studies purporting to show that HRT increased strokes and cardiovascular disease in menopausal women (many of them long postmenopausal) were fatally flawed. HRT, with estrogen, has long been known as clot-promoting agent; so why would a clinical trial subject women to a known clot-promoting agent without recommending they take aspirin, and without warning that clot-related events would be more likely? Why would an IRB be so negligent as to allow that study to even be initiated? In the case of this ghost writing revelation, both sides are at fault. Drug companies obviously are run on a profit-motive basis, and unfortunately show stunning manipulation, dishonesty, and fraud in their pursuit of the almighty dollar. And academics often have a hidden agenda, and set up their studies and their interpretation to suit their own political, social, or scientific biases, often reveling in their relentless attacks on the pharmaceutical industry, the profit motive, and capitalism. At this point, I do not know which party I hold in greatest contempt and disbelieve the most- greedy big pharma, or self-serving manipulative, duplicitous academics seeking an invitation to Stockholm.

Maybe there should be a correction to the journal impact factor calculations based on the proportion of ghosted articles published in the journal. The academics who accept these assignments are behaving unethically and are equally responsible for the deception.

I was interviewed by a major pharm company to be a ghost writer some years ago. When I pointed out the ethical dilemma with the tasks inherent to that position (it was called medical writer in the ad by the way), the recruiter coughed and looked down and said something like it's not really ghost-writing, it's helping busy physicians out. R-i-g-h-t.