Hold guest authors of ghostwritten research liable for fraud, say legal scholars

Holding the “guest author” of a ghostwritten paper legally liable for fraud may help to curb the practice in the face of the reluctance of universities and journals to act, argue legal scholars in PLoS Medicine (2011;8(8):e1001070, doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.1001070).

Universities and journals “have been slow on the uptake and haven’t done much” to tackle ghostwriting because they often have divided loyalties and don’t want to confront the powerful figures who are recruited as guest authors, the paper’s …