Valor Patrimonial del Fondo

Ghost authorship is the absence of the name of an individual as an author, despite mak- ing a substantial contribution to the article and fulfilling ICMJE criteria. It is especially prevalent in industry-initiated or industry-sponsored trials where the sponsors hire a professional agency/individual or their own employee(s) to carry out the duties of an author. Their name doesn’t appear in the author list. This makes him and the sponsor nonaccountable. This also conceals the bias that invariably creeps in. The worst

140

scenario is when a research is carried out and written by a pharmaceutical company but published in the name of a scientist of eminence who has not carried out the research.

The prevalence of ghost authorship was found to be 11% in 1996 and 9% in Cochrane libraries in 1999 [9, 10]. In the study published in BMJ in 2011, ghost authors were present in 49/622(7.9%) articles across six journals ranging from 2.1% to 11% [11]. In a study published in PLoS Med, 33/44(75%) of industry-initiated trials had ghost authorship. Prevalence increased to 40/44(91%) when those whose names were included in acknowledgment rather than as authors were included as ghost authors for analysis [12]. In a recent study published in 2015, 10/168 (6%) randomized drug/device trials were found to have primary ghost authorship [13]. It was found in those trials which had industry funding and collaboration. Such men- ace needs to be curbed immediately and effectively.

13.9 Plagiarism

The Latin word “plaga” means a hunter’s net and the Latin word “plagiare” refers to kidnap. The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines plagiarism as the act of using another person’s words or ideas without giving credit to that person. It is a fraudu- lent act since it amounts to a violation of intellectual property rights. Some common forms of plagiarism are copying sentences from someone’s paper without mention- ing the source, claiming other’s ideas as own, using images or videos without per- mission, failing to give the correct reference(s), etc.; if majority of work or idea is copied from somewhere, it amounts to plagiarism, even if due acknowledgments are made. Mosaic plagiarism refers to using other’s ideas and phrases and mixing them with some ideas and phrases of self. This is done without giving credit to the former. This may be very difficult to detect. Copying one’s own previous works also amount to plagiarism. Plagiarism is not uncommon and often goes unnoticed/unpunished, although there have been instances where the article has been retracted after publi- cation and the author reprimanded. Anti-plagiarism software are now available and increasingly used. It is the duty of authors, reviewers, editors, and publishers to ensure that no plagiarized work is published.

13.10 Summary

Authorship is prestigious and gives a sense of fulfillment, respect by peers, and fame. ICMJE has given four criteria for authorship and has recommended that authorship should be considered only on fulfilling all the criteria. Contributions not amounting to authorship must be duly acknowledged and the details of such contri- butions provided. The role of each author and contributor should be made available honestly and publicly. Issues of gift authorship and ghost authorship have emerged as threats to the credibility of the scientific community. The scientific community is rising to meet these challenges, and control measures have been formulated and implemented. The current control measures need to be strengthened and

implemented more vigorously and meticulously to fight this menace. Plagiarism is common and often unnoticed. It is the joint duty of authors, reviewers, editors, and publishers to maintain the sanctity of scientific publications and research to main- tain credibility and retain the faith of the society in this fast-developing field.

Case Scenario

A PhD student has done the thesis under the guidance of associate professor in the department. They conceived the study, wrote the protocol, did the research, and wrote the manuscript. The head of the department helped by permitting the research and providing space and equipment. A senior professor got the funding for the proj- ect. Another PhD student helped in the collection of data for 3 months when the researcher was on maternity leave. Who will all be authors in the manuscript?

References

1. Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals. Updated December 2015. http://www.icmje.org. Accessed 5 Sept 2016. 2. How to handle authorship disputes: a guide for new researchers. The COPE Report 2003.

Available at http://publicationethics.org/resources/code-conduct. Accessed 27 July 2016. 3. Wager E, Kleinert S.  Responsible research publication: international standards for authors.

A position statement developed at the 2nd world conference on research integrity. Singapore, July 22–24, 2010. Chapter 50 In: Mayer T, Steneck N, editors. Promoting research integrity in a global environment. Singapore: Imperial College Press/World Scientific Publishing; 2011. P. 309–16. ISBN 978-981-4340-97-7.

4. Gottesman M. The ethics of authorship: authorship by prior agreement – principles and pitfalls. Science. March 30, 2001. http://www.sciencemag.org/careers/2001/03/ethics- authorship- authorship-prior-agreement-principles-and-pitfalls Accessed 5 Sept 2016.

5. Defining the role of authors and contributors. http://www.icmje.org/recommendations/browse/ roles-and-responsibilities Accessed 5 Sept 2016.

6. Bavdekar SB. Authorship issues. Lung India. 2012;29:76–80.

7. National Institutes of Health. Guidelines for the conduct of research in the intramural research program at NIH. Available at: http://sourcebook.od.nih.gov/ethic-conduct/Conduct Accessed 10 Aug 2016.

8. Slone RM. Coauthors’ contributions to major papers published in the AJR: frequency of unde- served coauthorship. Am J Roentgenol. 1996;167:571–9.

9. Mowatt G, Shirran L, Grimshaw JM, Rennie D, Flanagin A, Yank V, MacLennan G, Gøtzsche PC, Bero LA.  Prevalence of honorary and ghost authorship in Cochrane reviews. JAMA. 2002;287:2769–71.

10. Flanagin A, Carey LA, Fontanarosa PB, Phillips SG, Pace BP, Lundberg GD, Rennie D. Prevalence of articles with honorary authors and ghost authors in peer-reviewed medical journals. JAMA. 1998;280:222–4.

11. Wislar JS, Flanagin A, Fontanarosa PB, DeAngelis CD. Honorary and ghost authorship in high impact biomedical journals: a cross sectional survey. BMJ. 2011;343:d6128.

12. Gøtzsche PC, Hróbjartsson A, Johansen HK, Haahr MT, Altman DG, Chan AW, Wagner L. Ghost authorship in industry-initiated randomized trials. M PLoS Med. 2007;4:e19. 13. Roper N, Korenstein D. Industry collaboration and primary guest authorship of high-impact

143 © Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2017

S.C. Parija, V. Kate (eds.), Writing and Publishing a Scientific Research Paper, DOI 10.1007/978-981-10-4720-6_14

R.M. Jose (*)

University Hospital Birmingham, Birmingham, England, UK e-mail: [email protected]

K. Sivasubramanian

Black Country Partnership NHS Foundation Trust, West Bromwich, England, UK

14