Sen. Grassley prods med schools about medical journal ghostwriting practices

"Senator Charles E. Grassley wrote to 10 top medical schools Tuesday to ask what they are doing about professors who put their names on ghostwritten articles in medical journals — and why that practice was any different from plagiarism by students," The New York Times reports. The inquiry is part of a continuing investigation by Grassley into the practice of outside writers, in some cases paid by drug or device makers, writing research articles without putting their name on the final publication.

Other researchers would receive the credit in such cases. "Mr. Grassley said ghostwriting had hurt patients and raised costs for taxpayers because it used prestigious academic names to promote medical products and treatments that might be expensive or less effective than viable alternatives" (Wilson, 11/17).