Three papers in the August issue bring new light to the problem of medical ghostwriting: the failure to name, as an author, an individual who has made substantial contributions to an article. Two of these articles offer remedies that the PLoS Medicine Editors in this month’s editorial argue must be seriously considered given the evidence of wider “ghost management” of the medical literature and the fact that current attempts to reduce ghostwriting are not succeeding. A Policy Forum by Simon Stern and Trudo Lemmens argues that the related problem of “guest authorship” — claiming credit for an article written by someone else — constitutes “legal fraud” and that the “same fraud could support claims of ‘fraud on the court’ against a pharmaceutical company that has used ghostwritten articles in litigation.” A Perspective by Alistair Matheson, an academic and commercial consultant, proposes fundamental revision of the ICMJE (International Committee of Medical Journal Editors) guidelines to give the concept of origination as much importance as authorship and contributorship, and proposes that writers and companies who work on industry publications should be listed as byline authors. Another Perspective by Linda Logdberg describes her personal experience of working in the medical communications industry and how she participated in ghostwriting until she came across an example that clashed with her personal beliefs. A collection launched this month brings together articles on ghostwriting previously published in PLoS Medicine and PLoS ONE. For PLoS Medicine’s involvement in 2009 in the litigation relating to the Prempro ghostwriting case, see the Wyeth Ghostwriting Archive.

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