Collaboration and Authorship of HighImpact Random

Authors: Jackie Marchington Art Gertel Cindy W Hamilton

Publish Date: 2015/05/22

Volume: 31, Issue: 1, Pages: 11-11

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Abstract

We read with interest Roper and Korenstein’s article entitled Industry Collaboration and Primary Guest Authorship of HighImpact Randomized Clinical Trials A CrossSectional Study 1 which appears to show a decrease in the prevalence of guest authorship compared with previous studies As leaders of the Global Alliance of Publication Professionals – GAPP wwwgappteamorg we have been and continue to be strong and vocal critics of inappropriate authorship However we are wary about how comparable this study is with the others cited by the authors2 3 4Roper and Korenstein open their article by defining guest authorship as “attribution of research article authorship to investigators not meeting standard authorship criteria” yet fail to use standard authorship criteria in their study They also suggest their guest authorship criteria are conservative and may underestimate the true prevalence of guest authorship We disagree as Roper and Korenstein focus only on the first part of the second International Committee of Medical Journal Editors ICMJE criterion5 By limiting their definition of authorship to “drafting the work” and ignoring “or revising it critically for important intellectual content” they lower the bar to guest author status and inflate prevalence estimates over apparently similar studies We also disagree that the initial writing of the manuscript is “generally” viewed as the responsibility of the primary authors6 There is no such guidance in the ICMJE criteria though we acknowledge that there are a few journals that specify this in their individual instructions for authors The ICMJE authorship criteria are viewed by many as flawed but they are widely accepted by journals and publishers It would be helpful they were applied consistently in studies such as theseIn the interests of full disclosure all members of GAPP have provided or do provide ethical medical writing services to academic biotechnology or pharmaceutical clients and all authors are active in national and international notforprofit associations that encourage ethical medical writing practicesAll authors declare that 1 we have provided or do provide ethical medical writing services to academic biotechnology or pharmaceutical clients 2 our spouses partners or children have no financial relationships that may be relevant to the submitted work and 3 we are all active in national and international notforprofit associations that encourage ethical medical writing practices No external sponsors were involved in the preparation of this letter and no external funding was used

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