RT Journal
A1 Patrono C
T1 GUest authorship, mortality reporting, and integrity in rofecoxib studies
JF JAMA
JO JAMA
YR 2008
FD August 27
VO 300
IS 8
SP 900
OP 906
DO 10.1001/jama.300.8.901-a
UL http://dx.doi.org/10.1001/jama.300.8.901-a
AB 
To the Editor: In their study of guest authorship and ghostwriting in publications related to rofecoxib, Dr Ross and colleagues1 published a 3-page table of articles describing clinical trial results or scientific reviews discussed internally within Merck (or whose author's name had been mentioned in Merck e-mail messages) prior to publication that proposed an external, academically affiliated investigator as an author. Despite a disclaimer in the Methods section (“[I]dentification of these articles does not imply that each was guest authored or ghostwritten; we examined these articles because we believed their discussion within internal documents . . . suggested that Merck was aware of the manuscript prior to publication and perhaps had provided support for the project”), inclusion of a review article within that table may suggest to the reader that it was inspired, previewed, authored, or paid for by Merck. This was not the case for at least 2 articles in that table: a review2 that I coauthored and a review3 for which I was sole author.