how industry uses the icmje guidelines to manipulate authorship—and how they should be revised行业如何使用icmje指南来操作身份和他们应该如何修改.pdfVIP

Perspective How Industry Uses the ICMJE Guidelines to Manipulate Authorship—And How They Should Be Revised Alastair Matheson* Independent Consultant, London, United Kingdom and Toronto, Canada Introduction publications were originated by academ- exaggeration or understatement of autho- ics. ‘‘Medical communications’’ agencies rial contributions. This practice is difficult Scientists and clinicians need to know bear joint responsibility for these practices, to trace, since it involves subjective judg- the authorship, author interests, and and for the systematic masking of corpo- ments, and the parties involved—compa- origination of the articles they read to rate origination within the medical litera- nies, writers, and KOLs —all have incen- judge them appropriately. Since 1985, the ture. Industry claims its activities are tives to allow their true levels of International Committee of Medical Jour- ethical, but this is disingenuous and rests contribution to be aggrandized or down- nal Editors (ICMJE) has provided evolving on two subtle strategies: first, the use of played. These practices gain succor from guidance on how authorship should be weak definitions or convenient under- weak definitions of ghostwriting and ghost managed in the complex setting of modern standings of concepts such as accountabil- authorship, which the World Association of biomedical science [1,2], to the benefit of ity, responsibility, authority, intellectual Medical Editors (WAME) and Council of the published literature. Issu