Brennan, who could not be reached for this article, said at the time that the company wanted to help him with the task by supplying him with an editorial it had commissioned for another journal. He said he rejected the offer.
Dr. Jerome Kassirer, editor of the New England Journal of Medicine from 1991 to 1999, said companies that draft research articles on their own drugs "necessarily bias the article in favor of their products, which may or may not be the best product for the patients."
And he said doctors who sign their names to studies they didn't actively participate in are "unprofessional to the very least and unethical at the very worst."
Kassirer said the practice of hiring consulting firms to write a first draft of review articles - which pull together studies on a drug - is particularly dangerous. That's because the firm can cherry-pick studies that reflect favorably on the drug and leave out ones that don't. An author who writes the final draft may be unaware of the omissions, he said.
Ruth Faden, director of the Hopkins bioethics institute, said the standard should be clear for any scientist asked to put his or her name to an article.
"If I have not contributed in a significant intellectual way to the science being reported or the review of analysis being reported, then I ought not be an author of that manuscript," she said.
Faden said the writing of a first draft is a serious matter because it helps shape what's presented in the final article: "Other authors who come in afterwards may do so without complete awareness they are working in that frame."
At Johns Hopkins, honorary authorship "is unacceptable and should be actively discouraged," according to policy, said Dr. Julie Gottlieb, Hopkins assistant dean for policy administration.
jonathan.bor@baltsun.com
Sun reporter Stephanie Desmon contributed to this article.
