JAMA article on ghostwriting medical studies 

 The Journal of the American Medical Association published a  piece today  on ghostwriting of medical research.  Thanks to the Vioxx lawsuits, the authors say that they found documents ``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.’’  One of the  exhibits  uses a placeholder ``External author?’’ for the expert to be named.  Obviously the idea that a pharmaceutical company is pre-writing clinical studies is as controversial as doctors possibly signing off on them without really being involved.  A  NYT article  has some comments, and Merck has released a  press statement . 

  
 Ross, J et al (2008) "Guest Authorship and Ghostwriting in Publications Related to Rofecoxib. A Case Study of Industry Documents From Rofecoxib Litigation" JAMA 299(15):1800-1812.