September 12th, 2009
Podcast 56: A conversation with two JAMA staffers on their research into “ghost” authorship and “honorary” authorship in the principal medical journals.
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We’ve seen research into this area before — 18 months ago, in fact. (We interviewed Joseph Ross back then in Podcast #2.) This time we interview Joseph Wislar, a survey-research specialist at JAMA, and Annette Flanagin, its managing deputy editor. They’ve just presented the abstracted results of a survey on ghost and honorary authorship that encompasses hundreds of articles from the principal medical journals.
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The magnitude of the ghost writing and its significance is horrifying. A corporation’s sole purpose is to make money. It may operate within the law, but does so without morality or ethics. It has no concern for persons, although it itself has a legal definition of being as a person. Two hundred years ago most state constitutions were about holding corporations in check.
Today, we are no longer the United States of America. “We” are the United Corporations of America, which is the owner of Congress. Or is it the United International Corporations of America? Anyway . . .
How does one describe something that is beyond appalling? What is real? What does it mean to be a flesh and blood human being up against an entity whose only purpose is to make the share be taller, thicker, longer, wider, greener?
In an academic discussion about society and its health, would not this deception and reckless disregard for life in pursuit of capital gain from flesh be considered a capital offense?