E-drug: Re: Sponsors and journal articles (cont'd)
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Dear colleagues,
May I mix myself in this discussion as managing editor of one of the
leading clinical pharmacology journals? There is already some
confusion in this discussion. In the first place there is nothing
against funding of research by industry, but when it is published this
should be declared. Same for co-authorship of industry employees.
Funding of articles (i.e., the writing itself) is another matter, and
what we as editors abhor is the institute of the "ghost writer" - the so-
called authors have not written a single letter, but the article was
written by an anonymous industry employee or an intermediate agency
(sometimes quite good!); but quite often we find out about this because the
ghost writer reveals his/her identity by asking for proofs or contacting the
publishers. We then have to confront the first "author" with his/her
fraudulent behaviour.
The third problem, and that is probably what we are talking about, is
the editing of paid supplements. Some reputable journals then allow
a "guest editor" to do the editing. A real peer review is often
impossible because the sponsor then would have to admit that some
of the papers presented at his symposium were of inferior quality! It
was shown at one of JAMA's peer review congresses that the
average quality of such papers is much below the standard of
"normal" articles published in the regular issues of the same journal.
Solutions are hard to come by because this is where the big money
can be found.
Dr.L.Offerhaus
Koedijklaan 1a, NL-1406KW Bussum, The Netherlands
Phone: +31-35-6923288. Fax: +31-35-6923290
E-mail: LO@EURONET.NL CompuServe: 71530,15
Eur J Clin Pharmacol ONLY:
POB 75552, NL-1070AN Amsterdam, The Netherlands
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