Who actually wrote the research paper? How to find it out.
In reply to the BMJ theme issue of 31st May 2003 (Vol 326 issue 7400)
“Time to untangle doctors from drug companies.”
Until the end of 2002, I worked for a medical writing agency as an
editorial assistant. I believe that the agency I worked for generally has
standards of practice that are consistent with best practice within the
industry. I write to you about the broader issues associated with general
practices in the industry.
It is my perception that there is consistently a high turnover in
staff throughout all branches of the pharmaceutical industry. It is also
my perception that the effect of this is that there is often a lack of
consistent follow-through on how the pharmaceutical industry acquires
data, monitors it, processes it, validates it.
Medical writing agencies go to great lengths to disguise the fact
that the papers and conference abstracts that they ghost-write and submit
to journals and conferences are ghost-written on behalf of pharmaceutical
companies and not by the named authors. There is a relatively high
success rate for ghost-written submissions - not outstanding, but
consistent.
One standard operating procedure I have used states that before a
paper is submitted to a journal electronically or on disk, the editorial
assistant must open the File Properties of the Word document manuscript
and remove the names of the medical writing agency or agency ghost-writer
or pharmaceutical drug company, and replace these with the name and
institution of the person who has been invited by the pharmaceutical drug
company (or by the agency acting on its behalf) to be named as lead
author, but who may have had no actual input into the paper.
Quality-assurance auditors vet the standard operating procedures of
the agency I worked for. I am surprised that these auditors, presumably
following government guidelines, do validate such a procedure, which is
actually in place in order disguise the true authorship from the editorial
boards of journals. This area seems very blurred. This practice is
contrary to the principles of openness and transparency of the scientific
method.
The full file history of every Word document may be retrieved, using
a Texteditor or a Hexeditor. It is impossible to change that history or to
disguise who actually created the Word document or the name of the
organisation of origin. Office applications can reveal the full chronology of authors, file paths, file names, file amendments, and details of the
computers used.
Text, graphics or tables that have been inserted
into a Word file will contain the full history of the document that they
were extracted from. Technical effort is required to identify this
information[1,2]. Such a check might be made prior to peer-review, using
an original file, saved onto disk by the authors and included as part of
the submission package to the journal. Even this check may not be
exhaustive or conclusive: for example, where a file has been exported into
.RTF format, much of the original file history may be lost. A Word
document that has been exported into .RTF format and subsequently back
into .DOC format, may possibly lose much of its original Word file
history. RTF offers a “track changes” option, so it may be possible to
view the entire text-editing history of a Word document that has been
exported into .RTF format. A file that has been exported into .PDF format
will have lost its entire history.
On-line submission of ghost-written papers and abstracts to journals
and conferences is done from the agency computer or sometimes from the
offices of the pharmaceutical company. Do journals and conference
organisers always try to identify the organisation that actually submitted
the electronic file?
An internet engine search on the authors of a paper will quickly
reveal whether these names are closely linked to pharmaceutical drug
companies, to their products or publicity materials.
The interests of the pharmaceutical industry lie at the heart of many
current, urgent debates: GM food, anti-depressants and their side-effects,
and others. We need to ask: Who wrote this paper? Who did this research?
Are the objectives of this research genuinely impartial? Is this process
fully transparent?
Independent authorship and impartiality are the cornerstones of
scientific research. The pharmaceutical giants are using the tools of
scientific research as a marketing tool. I believe that these marketing
practices are damaging the authority and effectiveness of pharmaceutical
research.
With thanks to Doro Mücke-Herzberg
References
(1) PC-Welt (German language publication) 1999(7):242-243. “Verborgene
Infos” (trans: Hidden information) Springer T, Apfelböck H.
(2) c’t (German language publication) 2002(3):172-175. “Dokumente
durchleuchtet: Was Office-Dateien verraten können” (trans: Documents under
the X-ray: what Office files can tell you) Rost M, Wallisch A.
Rapid Response:
Who actually wrote the research paper? How to find it out.
In reply to the BMJ theme issue of 31st May 2003 (Vol 326 issue 7400)
“Time to untangle doctors from drug companies.”
Until the end of 2002, I worked for a medical writing agency as an
editorial assistant. I believe that the agency I worked for generally has
standards of practice that are consistent with best practice within the
industry. I write to you about the broader issues associated with general
practices in the industry.
It is my perception that there is consistently a high turnover in
staff throughout all branches of the pharmaceutical industry. It is also
my perception that the effect of this is that there is often a lack of
consistent follow-through on how the pharmaceutical industry acquires
data, monitors it, processes it, validates it.
Medical writing agencies go to great lengths to disguise the fact
that the papers and conference abstracts that they ghost-write and submit
to journals and conferences are ghost-written on behalf of pharmaceutical
companies and not by the named authors. There is a relatively high
success rate for ghost-written submissions - not outstanding, but
consistent.
One standard operating procedure I have used states that before a
paper is submitted to a journal electronically or on disk, the editorial
assistant must open the File Properties of the Word document manuscript
and remove the names of the medical writing agency or agency ghost-writer
or pharmaceutical drug company, and replace these with the name and
institution of the person who has been invited by the pharmaceutical drug
company (or by the agency acting on its behalf) to be named as lead
author, but who may have had no actual input into the paper.
Quality-assurance auditors vet the standard operating procedures of
the agency I worked for. I am surprised that these auditors, presumably
following government guidelines, do validate such a procedure, which is
actually in place in order disguise the true authorship from the editorial
boards of journals. This area seems very blurred. This practice is
contrary to the principles of openness and transparency of the scientific
method.
The full file history of every Word document may be retrieved, using
a Texteditor or a Hexeditor. It is impossible to change that history or to
disguise who actually created the Word document or the name of the
organisation of origin. Office applications can reveal the full chronology of authors, file paths, file names, file amendments, and details of the
computers used.
Text, graphics or tables that have been inserted
into a Word file will contain the full history of the document that they
were extracted from. Technical effort is required to identify this
information[1,2]. Such a check might be made prior to peer-review, using
an original file, saved onto disk by the authors and included as part of
the submission package to the journal. Even this check may not be
exhaustive or conclusive: for example, where a file has been exported into
.RTF format, much of the original file history may be lost. A Word
document that has been exported into .RTF format and subsequently back
into .DOC format, may possibly lose much of its original Word file
history. RTF offers a “track changes” option, so it may be possible to
view the entire text-editing history of a Word document that has been
exported into .RTF format. A file that has been exported into .PDF format
will have lost its entire history.
On-line submission of ghost-written papers and abstracts to journals
and conferences is done from the agency computer or sometimes from the
offices of the pharmaceutical company. Do journals and conference
organisers always try to identify the organisation that actually submitted
the electronic file?
An internet engine search on the authors of a paper will quickly
reveal whether these names are closely linked to pharmaceutical drug
companies, to their products or publicity materials.
The interests of the pharmaceutical industry lie at the heart of many
current, urgent debates: GM food, anti-depressants and their side-effects,
and others. We need to ask: Who wrote this paper? Who did this research?
Are the objectives of this research genuinely impartial? Is this process
fully transparent?
Independent authorship and impartiality are the cornerstones of
scientific research. The pharmaceutical giants are using the tools of
scientific research as a marketing tool. I believe that these marketing
practices are damaging the authority and effectiveness of pharmaceutical
research.
With thanks to Doro Mücke-Herzberg
References
(1) PC-Welt (German language publication) 1999(7):242-243. “Verborgene
Infos” (trans: Hidden information) Springer T, Apfelböck H.
(2) c’t (German language publication) 2002(3):172-175. “Dokumente
durchleuchtet: Was Office-Dateien verraten können” (trans: Documents under
the X-ray: what Office files can tell you) Rost M, Wallisch A.
Competing interests:
None declared
Competing interests: No competing interests