Popular Science magazine recently announced the availability of a free cover-to-cover archive of the magazine dating back to May 1872. The archive is a result of a partnership with Google who also make the content available for browsing or searching on the Google Books site.
PLOS has a new article that examines the academic publishing policies on “authorship, ghostwriting, and conflicts of interest” currently in place at 50 medical schools in the US. The 50 schools were selected based on their appearance in US News’ Best Medical Schools 2009 list.
Some of the results show that just over half of these top 50 schools do not have a published policy on authorship or ghostwriting and that only 13 of the 50 schools have policies in place that prohibit ghostwriting. The paper has an excellent reference list pointing to other research and writing on the topic of ghostwriting in medical journals.
If you don’t know much about ghostwriting, here’s a good starting point:
Ghostwriting: The Dirty Little Secret of Medical Publishing That Just Got Bigger
Looking for statistics, charts, or maps on H1N1 or seasonal influenza? Here are three sources to get you started:
http://www.cdc.gov/flu/weekly/fluactivity.htm
Includes several charts and statistical tables including
Also includes a map of the United States showing geographic spread and degree of reported flu activity (includes both seasonal and H1N1). Updated weekly.
http://www.cdc.gov/flu/weekly/WeeklyFluActivityMap.htm
The American College Health Association collects data on the number influenza-like illnesses reported on colleges and universities in the United States. Counts are submitted on a voluntarily basis by colleges and universities and are not to be considered inclusive of all institutions of higher education.
Their epicurve chart displays weekly data from late August through present and shows the number of new cases and the “attack rate” per 10,000 people.
Google’s Flu Trends map shows trends in flu search activity. Google reports that an increase in flu-related searches are “good indicators of flu activity.” Activity is mapped geographically for the United States and can be compared to data from prior years.
Wired.com has a story telling how self published authors now have the ability to sell their works on Sony’s eBook store. The article also points out that authors can also sell works on Amazon’s Kindle. According to Sony’s partner, Smashwords, authors using the Sony store can expect “much higher royalties” with no charges for creating and uploading content. In addition, in Sony’s world, there is no DRM.
“Sony Opens Up eBook Platform to Self Publishers | Epicenter | Wired.com.” 29 Sep 2009 <http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2009/09/sony-opens-up-ebook-platform-to-self-publishers/>.
Slashdot points to an article in The New York Times describing a disturbing practice of one pharmaceutical company hiring a ghostwriting firm to pen articles for publication in academic journals. Of course it would look mighty suspicious to journal editors seeing a manuscript authored by a writing firm so the writing firm rounded up some “top physicians” who allowed their names to be cited as the authors.
Here is one of the articles included in the discussion:
Bachmann GA. (2005). Menopausal vasomotor symptoms: a review of causes, effects and evidence-based treatment options. The Journal Of Reproductive Medicine, 50(3), 155-165.
The released court documents include an email exchange between the ghostwriter and Bachmann where Bachmann indicates that “It is the best article that I have come across on this topic.” Funny words for someone who is supposedly the author.
I wonder how long this kind of publishing has been going on and what kind of long term impact is has on other research. Google Scholar currently shows that Bachmann’s article has been referenced 32 times. How many others are out there?
Source:
Singer, N. (2009, August 5). Medical Papers by Ghostwriters Pushed Therapy. The New York Times. Retrieved August 7, 2009, from http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/05/health/research/05ghost.html.