Media Release
For Immediate Release
April 29, 2011
Conference looks at impact of ghostwriting scientific articles, academics ‘lending’ their name to publications, and the role of pharmaceuticals
(Toronto, April 29, 2011) US congressional investigator Paul Thacker, the ‘ethics cop of US biomedicine’ will be speaking at the Ethics of Ghost Authorship in Biomedical Research Conference: Concerns and Remedies, May 4, 2011 at the University of Toronto Faculty of Law.
Thacker led a vast probe, called the Grassley Commission, into the financial reports required from biomedical researchers who receive US federal funds. He is one of many esteemed speakers at the conference, which will bring together medical researchers, legal scholars, medical journal editors, academic administrators, clinicians, medical writers, bioethics experts and patient advocates to discuss ghostwriting and its implications.
Conference organizer and law professor Trudo Lemmens has tough words for academics who participate in ghostwriting. “It undermines the integrity of the academic publication system. And it’s a prostitution of their academic standing.”
Recent controversies have raised concerns about the integrity of authorship in scientific publications, particularly when pharmaceutical corporations pay undisclosed ghostwriters to prepare journal articles to which academic experts lend their names. Class action lawsuits in the US and other countries, and publications in leading medical journals, have revealed ghostwritten articles have been extensively used for the often off-label promotion of pharmaceutical products. Ghostwriting has been uncovered in the context of, for example, Hormone Replacement Therapies, Vioxx, Neurontin, Fen-Phen, and various anti-depressants. One Australian lawsuit revealed several specialized medical journals published by Elsevier, and distributed widely among physicians, were directly sponsored by Merck, had the appearance of a peer-reviewed journal, with advisory boards of academic experts, and did not clearly disclose that it was an industry-funded journal. The articles in these journals largely favoured drugs such as VIOXX and Fosamax, which have been associated with serious side-effects.
For further information, and the full list of speakers, view: http://bit.ly/mDKfQS
WHAT: Ethics of Ghost Authorship in Biomedical Research Conference: Concerns and Remedies
*US congressional investigator Paul Thacker presents at 8:30 am*
WHEN: Wed. May 4, 2011, 8:30 am to 5:15 pm
WHERE: University of Toronto Faculty of Law
Flavelle House, 78 Queen’s Park, FLA Classroom (lower level)
INFO: Prof. Trudo Lemmens, Trudo.lemmens@utoronto.ca; 416-978-4201
*Media are requested to RSVP, as seating is limited: Lucianna Ciccocioppo, Director, External Relations, Lucianna.ciccocioppo@utoronto.ca; 416-946-0334
The event is sponsored by: the Centre for Ethics; the Centre for Innovation, Law and Policy; the Joint Centre for Bioethics; and the Faculty of Law of the University of Toronto, as well as by a research grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council on the Ethics of Biomedical Research.
