Do You Believe in Ghosts?
Scholars are supposed to consult “the Literature” and contribute to it as part of their professional duties. Library types are supposed to preserve it, and make sure its treasures are available for future generations. In that subsection of scholarly publishing that relates to medicine, however, there is growing reason to suspect that much of ”the Literature” is simply drug company flackery; very well conceived, slickly executed flackery, it is true, but flackery nonetheless. And concern about preserving it is, to put it mildly, misplaced. ”Ghost” authoring of journal articles has been known for a while, but studying it has been, for obvious reasons, rather difficult. “Opinion Leaders” are shy about admitting they allowed their names to be attached to articles they not only didn’t write, but which were prepared by a Pharma company or its contractual agent. An article in PloS Medicine raises the ante a good bit. Why “ghost” just the article? Why not “ghost” the whole business…trial, data gathering, write-up, the works. A little judicious steering here and there, to make sure the right things get said and the wrong things left out, can do wonders for a product launch. Read the article by Dr. Sismondo, and pay special attention to the section discussing the Sertraline trials. On the Scholar’s Space we spend a lot of time fretting about technology, assuming, operationally at least, that everything else in the hallowed research/publishing cycle is fine. What if we have it all backwards? What if the technology is the easiest, most tractable part, and it’s the rest of the process that needs worry and work?
Boo!
PS. In the context of all the hooha raised by the PRISM crowd about Peer Review and OA, notice in the PLoS article how neatly PR has been co-opted into the “marketing process”. It’s no threat to the ghosters, and beating it is not only easy, but necessary for a successful “placement”.
