UM professor accused of submitting ghostwritten textbook

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Miami Herald

Posted on Friday, 12.03.10
UM professor accused of submitting ghostwritten textbook

A UM psychiatry professor is accused of having a textbook with his name on it ghostwritten by a firm paid for by a drug manufacturer.
BY JOHN DORSCHNER
[e-mail]


A national watchdog group has accused a University of Miami psychiatrist, Charles Nemeroff, of listing himself as a co-author of a textbook that was ghostwritten by a writing company and paid for by a major drug maker.

The Washington-based Project on Government Oversight has written a letter to the National Institutes of Health complaining about three publications, including Nemeroff's, in which a marketing firm, Scientific Therapeutics Information, performed ghostwriting about drug benefits that was paid for by a company now known as GlaxoSmithKline.

Nemeroff and the book's publisher, the American Psychiatric Association, emphatically denied the charge.

The oversight group says the issue is huge because of concerns that drug makers may exert undue influence in getting the public to use certain brands -- and perhaps raising the nation's healthcare costs in the process.



Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/12/03/1954823/um-professor-accused-of-submitting.html

[greymattermom]

1. I doubt it

Charlie is a very smart guy, works very hard, and he has the knowledge to write a book like this, while the GSK people aren't even physicians. There should be a way to check this based on writing style.

[No Elephants]

4. Plagiarism, bad as it is, is the least of the ethical violations here.

[Tempest]

9. Charlie isn't such a smart guy, and it's not the first time he's been accused

See post #2.

[pam4water]

2. Not this guys first ethical problem "Undisclosed Financial Ties Prompt Reproval of Doctor" -NYT Link

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9407E7DE103EF930A3575BC0A9659C8B63


"

...In his article, Dr. Nemeroff mentions roughly two dozen potential new therapies, saying that some had shown disappointing results and that others were promising. One treatment he describes favorably is a patch that delivers lithium through the skin, a method that he says would improve patients' ability to tolerate the medicine. He did not disclose that he held the patent on that patch.

Dr. Nemeroff also did not disclose that he was a significant shareholder in Corcept Therapeutics, a company in Menlo Park, Calif., that is trying to develop mifepristone, a drug now approved to induce abortions, into a treatment for psychotic depression. In the article, he wrote that there had been ''impressive studies'' with mifepristone, indicating that it ''is very effective in the treatment of psychotic depression.'' ..."



Thinks Charlies mom made the first post.

[greymattermom]

10. Nope

But I do know him. Served on NIH study section with him for 3 years.

[No Elephants]

3. "....perhaps raising the nation's healthcare costs in the process."

[AngryAmish]

5. This looks bad.

When I was a graduate student I wrote a few chapters for my professor's textbook/book for professionals in the field. I got a thank you in the front of the book (and my tuition paid for). It did not say I wrote any of the chapters (and parts were rewritten by the professor). I never thought this was fraud or even plagiarism. Was it?

[alcibiades_mystery]

6. If you actually wrote chapters

you should have received a co-author credit, even if your professor subsequently did some editing.

It's not plagiarism, but it is outright exploitation of graduate student labor.

[AngryAmish]

7. I don't feel especially exploited

The book sold like 1500 copies. He wrote most of the book. It was an easy job. I had to teach some classes, write these chapters, play golf a few times a week with him. Not especially hard.

[alcibiades_mystery]

8. How you feel about it isn't really material

Just sayin'...

You should have gotten a co-author credit.

:-)