Being the Ghost in the Machine: A Medical Ghostwriter's Personal View

Being the Ghost in the Machine: A Medical Ghostwriter's Personal View

PLOS

August 2011

http://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1001071

"....Written by former ghostwriter: “For almost 11 years, I worked as a medical writer, creating a variety of pieces including the occasional ghostwritten article. For the most part, I never saw the finished paper, nor did I care to. This article describes what I did, why I did it, why I stopped doing it, and what I think might be done about the problem of fraud in authorship.”

Interesting. I have been an RN for what? Thirty seven years now? Before I got off benzos I worked full times as a nurse. (An impaired nurse, btw.) Going CT off benzos changed my entire life, for the better.

I did not know that the medical community employs ghost writers. Truly weird and strange. Could you explain more simply what this  really means?

east

Interesting. I have been an RN for what? Thirty seven years now? Before I got off benzos I worked full times as a nurse. (An impaired nurse, btw.) Going CT off benzos changed my entire life, for the better.

 

I did not know that the medical community employs ghost writers. Truly weird and strange. Could you explain more simply what this  really means?

east

I did not know that either but no doubt it has been happening and is still happening.

Its a long article but the author explains... " what I did, why I did it, why I stopped doing it, and what I think might be done about the problem of fraud in authorship.”

.... further she says...

"...Wordsmithing is ubiquitous in all promotional writing, not just ghostwriting: it's the name of the game. Yet advertising masquerading as unbiased health information clearly threatens the fundamental assumptions of scientific research."

"I was unwilling to turn this ugly duckling of a “me-too” drug into a marketable swan." I found this quote says a lot. There is a lot of stuff going on behind the scenes promoting these drugs that we just don't know about. I will never again trust what I am told by docs/advertisements or whatever when it comes to meds.

Becky

"I was unwilling to turn this ugly duckling of a “me-too” drug into a marketable swan." I found this quote says a lot. There is a lot of stuff going on behind the scenes promoting these drugs that we just don't know about. I will never again trust what I am told by docs/advertisements or whatever when it comes to meds.

 

Becky

Well said.... I agree.