Authors, Ghosts, Damned Lies, and Statisticians

S ince the earliest peer-reviewed publications of the late 17th century, conventions about the authorship of scientifi c papers—which were generally anonymous and attributed to the sponsor (in those days, usually the church or the king)—have evolved considerably [1]. Readers now want to know not only who paid for the research but also who did the work. Transparency (i.e., full disclosure) is now considered a moral responsibility, and many medical journals have introduced mechanisms for increasing transparency [2]. The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) has also issued guidance on who qualifi es for authorship [3], and their criteria have been updated and augmented several times in response to several authorship scandals [4]. Yet problems with authorship persist. In a new study published in PLoS Medicine, Peter Gøtzsche and colleagues compared research protocols with study publications to examine the prevalence and nature of ghost authorship in 44 industry-initiated randomized trials [5]. They defi ned ghost authorship as occurring when anybody who wrote the protocol, did the statistical analysis, or wrote the manuscript was not listed as an author. Using this criterion of ghost authorship (which is based, loosely, on the ICMJE defi nition), they showed that 75% of the publications had ghost authors and, in all cases, the ghosts were statisticians. This study is unique in using information from research protocols (which were provided by a Danish research ethics committee) to look for evidence of ghost authorship. Previous studies have either contacted named authors [6] or relied solely on disclosures in publications [7]. All methods have serious limitations. Named authors may be unwilling to admit that deserving colleagues have been omitted from the author list, and may also be reluctant to disclose the contributions of ghosts in the acknowledgments section. Protocols, written at the start of a study, might not record signifi cant but unanticipated contributions or changes in personnel. Another unusual feature of Gøtzsche et al.'s study is the focus on statisticians. Most previous investigations and commentaries have focused on the involvement of medical writers. Gøtzsche et al. examined whether the person who wrote the protocol was included as an author on the subsequent publication. However, only fi ve of the 44 protocols had named authors (in all cases, employees of the sponsoring company), and none of them were listed as authors or mentioned in the acknowledgments in the publication. Professional medical writers are often involved in writing …