The Effectof Professionalwriters Onauthorship

on trust. Journal editors, reviewers and readers expect that a paper’s content reflects the opinions of the authors and all the available data. Recently, there has been concern that this trust may be undermined by the involvement of industry-paid writers in the preparation of publications (Bodenheimer, 2000). These professional writers are either employed directly by pharmaceutical companies or work for medical communications agencies; their contribution to a paper varies, but may include writing the first draft of a manuscript for the authors to revise or editing a paper written by the authors (Lagnado, 2003). Despite much discussion about the merits of industry-funded writing assistance, there has been little research into its effects on the biomedical literature.