{"title":"The \"Monsanto papers\" and the nature of ghostwriting and related practices in contemporary peer review scientific literature.","authors":"Alastair Matheson","doi":"10.1080/08989621.2023.2234819","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The Monsanto company - now acquired by Bayer - has been accused of ghostwriting articles within peer review literature, with the goal of using influential names to front its content in defence of the herbicide Roundup. Here, I conduct a detailed analysis of three Monsanto review articles and a five-article journal supplement for which detailed information from company emails is publicly available following litigation over Roundup. All the articles had external, but not Monsanto authors, and ghostly practices including ghost authorship, corporate ghost authorship and ghost management were evident in their development. There was clear evidence of ghostwriting - that is, drafting of the manuscript by non-authors - in only two cases. I found no evidence of undeserving authorship among the external authors. The articles complied with the disclosure requirements of their journals, save for the journal supplement. While crude ghostwriting did occur, much of the literature involved subtler practices through which Monsanto exercised control over content, while the attribution of the articles downplayed the company's role - and correspondingly aggrandized that of the external authors. Such practices are widespread within industry journal literature and are the responsibility of byline authors and journals as well as corporations. I discuss these cultural problems and consider remedies.</p>","PeriodicalId":50927,"journal":{"name":"Accountability in Research-Policies and Quality Assurance","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.8000,"publicationDate":"2024-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Accountability in Research-Policies and Quality Assurance","FirstCategoryId":"98","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1080/08989621.2023.2234819","RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"2023/7/17 0:00:00","PubModel":"Epub","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"MEDICAL ETHICS","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
The Monsanto company - now acquired by Bayer - has been accused of ghostwriting articles within peer review literature, with the goal of using influential names to front its content in defence of the herbicide Roundup. Here, I conduct a detailed analysis of three Monsanto review articles and a five-article journal supplement for which detailed information from company emails is publicly available following litigation over Roundup. All the articles had external, but not Monsanto authors, and ghostly practices including ghost authorship, corporate ghost authorship and ghost management were evident in their development. There was clear evidence of ghostwriting - that is, drafting of the manuscript by non-authors - in only two cases. I found no evidence of undeserving authorship among the external authors. The articles complied with the disclosure requirements of their journals, save for the journal supplement. While crude ghostwriting did occur, much of the literature involved subtler practices through which Monsanto exercised control over content, while the attribution of the articles downplayed the company's role - and correspondingly aggrandized that of the external authors. Such practices are widespread within industry journal literature and are the responsibility of byline authors and journals as well as corporations. I discuss these cultural problems and consider remedies.
期刊介绍:
Accountability in Research: Policies and Quality Assurance is devoted to the examination and critical analysis of systems for maximizing integrity in the conduct of research. It provides an interdisciplinary, international forum for the development of ethics, procedures, standards policies, and concepts to encourage the ethical conduct of research and to enhance the validity of research results.
The journal welcomes views on advancing the integrity of research in the fields of general and multidisciplinary sciences, medicine, law, economics, statistics, management studies, public policy, politics, sociology, history, psychology, philosophy, ethics, and information science.
All submitted manuscripts are subject to initial appraisal by the Editor, and if found suitable for further consideration, to peer review by independent, anonymous expert referees.