Abstract
Ghostwriting in medicine represents a highly significant problem in both legal and ethical terms, and particularly in recent years owing to a sudden increase in the practice. The main goal in this paper is to present the legal and ethical rules connected with the ghostwriting phenomenon. The problem is presented in the context of international, European and Polish law. From a legal perspective the issues bound up with ghostwriting are those of the notion and authorship of a work, authors’ rights (both moral rights and copyright), the content of these rights and their nature, as well as the question of the transfer of such rights. From the point of view of ethics there arises a need for reflection on honesty, accuracy and credibility as defined both generally and scientifically.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Act of 4 February 1994 on copyright and related rights. J Laws 00.80.904
Bainbridge DI (2009) Intellectual property, 7th edn. Pearson Longman, Harlow, England, New York
Barta J, Czajkowska-Dąbrowska M, Ćwiąkalski Z et al (2001) Ustawa o prawie autorskim i prawach pokrewnych. Komentarz. Dom Wydawniczy ABC, Warszawa
Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works of September 9, 1886, completed at PARIS on May 4, 1896, revised at BERLIN on November 13, 1908, completed at BERNE on March 20, 1914, revised at ROME on June 2, 1928, at BRUSSELS on June 26, 1948, at STOCKHOLM on July 14, 1967, and at PARIS on July 24, 1971, and amended on September 28, 1979. Available at the WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organisation) web site: http://www.wipo.int/treaties/en/ip/berne/trtdocs_wo001.html. Accessed 3rd June 2010
Case T-68/89 (1991) ECR 1992 p. II-1403
Cases C-92/92 and C-326/92, ECR 1993 p. I-05145
Colston C (1999) Principles of intellectual property law. Cavendish Publishing Limited, London-Sydney
Colston C, Middleton K (2005) Modern intellectual property law, 2nd edn. Cavendish Publishing Limited, London
Commission Staff Working Paper on the review of the EC legal framework in the field of copyright and related rights, available at: http://ec.europa.eu/internal_market/copyright/docs/review/sec-2004-995_en.pdf. Accessed 15 June 2010
Cornish WR (1981) Intellectual property: patents, copyright, trade marks and allied rights. Sweet & Maxwell, London
Cullen DJ (1997) Ghostwriting in scientific anesthesia journals. Anesthesiology 87:197–290
Declaration of Geneva adopted by the 2nd General Assembly of the World Medical Association, Geneva, Switzerland, September 1948 and amended by the 22nd World Medical Assembly, Sydney, Australia, August 1968 and the 35th World Medical Assembly, Venice, Italy, October 1983 and the 46th WMA General Assembly, Stockholm, Sweden, September 1994 and editorially revised at the 170th Council Session, Divonne-les-Bains, France, May 2005 and the 173rd Council Session, Divonne-les-Bains, France, May 2006, available at: http://www.wma.net/en/30publications/10policies/c8/index.html. Accessed 15 June 2010
Gawlik Z, Janiak A, Jedliński A et al. (2009) In: Kidyba A (ed) Kodeks cywilny. Komentarz. Tom I. Część ogólna. Wolters Kluwer Polska-LEX, Warszawa
Goldstein P (2001) International copyright. Oxford University Press, Oxford
Gotzsche PC, Kassirer JP, Woolley KL et al (2009) What should be done to tackle ghostwriting in the medical literature? PLoS Med 6:e23
Holderness M (1998) Moral rights and authors’ rights: the keys to the information age. J Info Law Technol. Available http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/law/elj/jilt/1998_1/holderness/. Accessed 28 June 2010
Jacobs A (2005) The involvement of professional medical writers in medical publications: results of a Delphi study. Curr Med Res Opin 21:311–316
Jacobs A, Wagner E (2005) European Medical Writers Association (EMWA) guidelines on the role of medical writers in developing peer-reviewed publications. Curr Med Res Opin 21:317–322
Josselin M (1992) The concept of the contract for the exploitation of author’s rights: a comparative-law approach. Copyright bulletin (UNESCO). Fortieth anniversary of the Universal Copyright Convention 26:6–16
Kase FJ (1967) Copyright thought in Continental Europe. Its development. Legal theories and philosophy. Fred B. Rothman & Co, New York
Kassirer JP (2009) Ghostwriting is difficult to define, and we need more evidence of its frequency and impact. In: Gotzsche PC et al. (2009) What should be done to tackle ghostwriting in the medical literature? PLoS Med 6:e23
Keeling DT (2003) Intellectual property rights in EU Law. vol I. Oxford University Press, Oxford
Lagnado M (2003) Professional writing assistance: effects on biomedical publishing. Learned Publishing 16:21–27
Langdon-Neuner E (2008) Medical ghost-writing. Mens Sana Monographs 6:257–273. Available at http://www.msmonographs.org/text.asp?2008/6/1/257/33006. Accessed 28 June 2010
McJohn SM (2006) Copyright. Examples and explanations. Aspen Publishers, New York
Niżankowska AM (2007) Prawo do integralności utworu. Wolters Kluwer Polska, Warszawa
Patterson LR (1968) Copyright in historical perspective. Vanderbilt University Press, Nashville
Phillips SG, Carey LA (1999) Whose article is it anyway? Lancet 354:1563
Radkova L (2001) Moral rights of authors in international copyright of the 21st Century: time for consolidation? LL.M, University of British Columbia, Faculty of Law. Vancouver. Available at https://circle.ubc.ca/bitstream/handle/2429/12202/ubc_2002-0216.pdf. Accessed 28 June 2010
Resnik DB (1998) The ethics of science. An introduction. Routlege, New York
Ricketson S (1987) The Berne Convention for the protection of literary and artistic works: 1886–1986. Centre for Commercial Law Studies, Queen Mary College
Rollin BE (2006) Science and ethics. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Rosenblum K (ed) (2004) Intellectual property law in the European community: a country-by-country review. World Trade Executive Inc, Concord
Rushton M (1998) The moral rights of artists: Droit Moral ou Droit Pécuniaire? J Cult Econ 22:15–32
Seville C (2006) The internalisation of copyright law. Books, Buccaneers and the Black Flag in the Nineteenth Century. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Seville C (2009) EU intellectual property law and policy. Edward Elgar, Cheltenham
Shamoo AE, Resnik DB (2009) Responsible conduct of research, 2nd edn. Oxford Univesrity Press, Oxford-New York
Swedberg K (2008) Who is an author? Editorial. Eur J Heart Fail 10:523–524
The International Covenant On Economic, Social And Cultural Rights. Available at: http://www2.ohchr.org/english/law/cescr.htm. Accessed 28 June 2010
The Treaty of Rome of March 25 1957 adopted in Rome. Available at: http://ec.europa.eu/economy_finance/emu_history/documents/treaties/rometreaty2.pdf. Accessed 15 June 2010
The Universal Copyright Convention adopted in Geneva on September 6, 1952. Available on the UNESCO web site: http://portal.unesco.org/en/ev.php-URL_ID=15381&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html. Accessed 3rd June 2010
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Available at: http://daccess-dds-ny.un.org/doc/RESOLUTION/GEN/NR0/043/88/IMG/NR004388.pdf?OpenElement. Accessed 28 June 2010
Wikipedia contributors, Ghostwriter. Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ghostwriter&oldid=369722172. Accessed 13 June 2010
World Association of Medical Editors (2005) Ghost writing initiated by commercial companies. Available at http://www.wame.org/wamestmt.htm#ghost.2005. Accessed 13 June 2010
World Intellectual Property Organization Copyright Treaty, adopted in Geneva on December 20, 1996, text available at the WIPO web site: http://www.wipo.int/treaties/en/ip/wct/trtdocs_wo033.html. Accessed 3rd June 2010
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
About this article
Cite this article
Wnukiewicz-Kozłowska, A. Legal and Ethical Aspects of Ghostwriting in Medicine. Arch. Immunol. Ther. Exp. 59, 1–9 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00005-010-0105-y
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00005-010-0105-y