GHOSTWRITING AND MEDICAL RESEARCH ETHICS

Medical Ghostwriting in Europe

In Europe, pharmaceutical industry is by far the most frequent user group of these services. Not infrequently, this offers access to a ghostwriting service also to clinicians, who are reluctant to spend their time by writing reports on clinical trials with the company products. This tendency has not remained unrecognised by the Editors of several European Journals, raising an issue of the topic few years past e.g. in The Lancet.

Sharp D. A ghostly crew. Lancet 1998;351:1076; Replies by Wager E. and Grossman L. Lancet 1998;351:1741.

In Europe, medical ghostwriters have an association, European Medical Writers Association (EMWA), which is considerably smaller than its American counterpart.

Medical Ghostwriting in the United States

Situation is very much different in the United States, where the old principle of "Publish or Perish" is still very much alive today. This has led to situation, where many authors option to use medical ghostwriters as a means of improving the efficiency of their research team. The popularity of the profession is evident in that the American Medical Writers Association (AMWA ) has over 4.000 members. Moreover, University courses are available to make graduates in medical writing, to satisfy their increasing demand on the market.

There are several important issues to be considered to get an unbiased view what medical ghostwriting is about, how the ghostwriters work, and what type of ethical issues should be taken into account, while delegating the writing to a professional medical ghostwriter.

When do you need a Medical Ghostwriter and when is an expert Scientific Consultant necessary?

There is a major difference between a traditional Medical Ghostwriter and a Scientific Consultant. They have a different profile, but there are some new service providers in the field, that cover the expertise of both. SMW Consultants Ltd. is one of those.

These important considerations are discussed in a separate document, which is downloadable here.