Academic Authorship - Ghost Authorship

Ghost authorship occurs when an individual makes a substantial contribution to the research but is not listed as an author. Ghost authorship has been linked to partnerships between industry and higher education. Two-thirds of industry-initiated randomized trials may have evidence of ghost authorship. Ghost authorship is considered problematic especially because it may be used to obscure the participation of researchers with conflicts of interest.

Litigation against the pharmaceutical company, Merck over health concerns related to use of their drug, Rofecoxib (brand name Vioxx), revealed explicit examples of ghost authorship. Merck routinely prepared journal manuscripts, and subsequently recruited external, academically affiliated researchers to pose as the authors.

Authors are sometimes included in a list without their permission. Even if this is done with the benign intention to acknowledge some contributions, it is problematic since authors carry responsibility for correctness and thus need to have the opportunity to check the manuscript and possibly demand changes.