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International - Misconduct Cases
Danes Deplore Publication Practice
Volume 8, No. 2, March 2000
An American communications company was found
to have encouraged a dishonest act by the Danish Committee on Scientific
Dishonesty (DCSD) for offering the authorship of a finished manuscript
to a Danish researcher who did not participate in preparing the
manuscript.
The DCSD came to that conclusion for the following reasons:
"The company wanted to convey the false impression that
the review article which recommends the product of a particular
company had been written by an independent and impartial expert,
whereas it had in fact been written by authors associated with
the company.
The company encouraged a violation of international regulations
of authorship which state that authorship may only be claimed
if considerable and independent efforts have been expended in
the preparation of the article."
In its response to the DCSD, the American company asserted it had
not committed a dishonest act because the content of the review
article was true and the researcher could make corrections to the
article, which contained no original data.
The DCSD commended the researcher for submitting the case and concluded
that "it would be very deplorable, if the practise were to
spread where experts lend their authority to articles which have
been written by other persons at the instigation of the pharmaceutical
manufacturer which persons cannot be considered above rendering
a biased presentation. The medical profession should not be tempted
by comfortable authorships to participate in such misleading conduct. . ."
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