Being the Ghost in the Machine A Medical Ghostwriters Personal View 英文参考文献.docVIP

Perspective BeingtheGhostintheMachine:AMedicalGhostwriter’s PersonalView LindaLogdberg* Biologist,FernbankScienceCenter,Atlanta,Georgia,UnitedStatesofAmerica Introduction does not help define chronic pain, but it plants the idea that treatment should be started ASAP in the mind of the listener. Clients admonished us to always distin- guishbetween‘‘adverseeffects’’(forcom- petitors’ products: Drug X could have causedtheheartattack)andadverseevents (ourproduct:somepatientstakingDrugX justhappenedtohaveaheartattack). Ironically, though, it was the ethics of authorshipthatsentmefleeingacademia. I ran afoul of a colleague in my last Ethical concerns about medical ghost- writing have been directed primarily at ‘‘guest’’ authors and the pharmaceutical companiesthatpaythem.Onevoicethat islargelymissingisthatoftheghostwriters themselves who, after all, create the documents that are in the ethical and legalcrosshairs.Without them,onecould argue,therecanbenofraud,becauseitis theywhocreatethefraudulentproduct. For almost 11 years, I worked as a medicalwriter,creatingavarietyofpieces includingtheoccasionalghostwrittenarti- cle. For the most part, I never saw the finished paper, nor did I care to. This article describes what I did, why I did it, why I stopped doing it, and what I think mightbedoneabouttheproblemoffraud inauthorship. research position, who assumed that postdocs would draft his grant renewal application.Icommentedoffhandedlyone day, ‘‘Well, I for one would never write somethingandhavesomeoneelsesignhis name to it—that would be unethical.’’ Dr. Xtoldmethatthatwaswhenherealized that it would not work out for me to continue there, as my attitude was unac- ceptably insubordinate. Faced with the needforajob,Iresignedandansweredan ad in The New York Times for a company thatneededmedicalwriters.Thisbegana seriesoffreelanceandin-housejobswitha rangeofmedicalcommunicationscompa- nies. Ghostwritingwasasmall,butreal,part ofmyduties.Ihaveseenpublishedpieces thatarevirtua