JAMA Ghosts = Invisible News

A couple of weeks ago, we covered the release of the JAMA Ghost writing article JAMA articles on Ghost writing and Study Results draws attention, later we discussed that one of the authors had been caught with his finger in the cookie jar. JAMA: Ghost Author’s Skeletons.

Today Nature’s editorial board — Nothing to See Here — writes that there was nothing new about ghost writing, that this is not unlike in other team efforts “in which everyone in the team has different jobs. Some people do clinical research, others write papers. Not necessarily a big deal, or a big surprise.”

The second problem with the article is that JAMA did not apprise Merck of the release of the article, or opportunity to respond.  “That left the company with only the press to air their side of the story, certainly not any way to get to the bottom of the issue or promote a healthy exchange of views”.

According to Nature, it does not reflect the current practices at Merck, as the paper was based on five year and older data. “Indeed, no one at JAMA bothered to find out that Merck adopted as its policy for authorship the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors’ guidelines (http://www.icmje.org/)”

“But the JAMA editorial then goes too far, leaping on the findings to make recommendations that are unwarranted, not to say discriminatory, against the body corporate.”

In recommendation 5, the JAMA editors call for sponsored research not to be solely in the hands of the sponsoring company. Rather, they propose that academic researchers who are not employed by the company should bear primary responsibility for collecting, analyzing and reporting data. So, who would these academics be, and what constitutes ‘being in the employ’? How would this work for companies that don’t partner with academics? Would accepting research support disqualify academics? Would receiving honoraria disqualify them?

According to Nature, "The editors of JAMA and other journals would do well to focus on content, not process. JAMA’s attack casts a cloud over the entire industry."

JAMA Editor Catherine D. DeAngelis, MD is known to be a long time critic of pharmaceutical, biotech and device industries and private companies’ involvement in conducting research and CME, and she regularly goes out of her way to attach her agenda to almost any issue.   The ghost writing articles are just one more example in a long line of editorials critical of everyone who does not espouse her agenda.  (For more on Catherine’s philosophy in her own words: The Influence of Money on Medical Science)

JAMA’s editorial staff is using flimsy evidence to support an agenda, an agenda where they suggest academics control all aspects of clinical trials with no financial interest.  But the problem is that without financial interest there is no incentive to fund the research in the first place.   

http://www.nature.com/nbt/journal/v26/n5/abs/nbt0508-476.html

This philosophy is several millenniums old, and it didn’t work in Athens, Rome or Moscow, it is not going to work today.