Authorship and accountability

1. Authorship and accountability • Contributorship • Listed authors deserve authorship • Independence • The authors enjoyed the prerogatives of scientists • Responsibility • For the aftercare of the article, including corrections and retractions.

2. Contributorship • Authors should do all of the following • Substantial contributions • Conception and design • Acquisition of data • Analysis and interpretation • Drafting and revising the article • Final approval of the version to be published ICMJE website: www.icmje.org/index.html

3. Contributorship • Acquisition of funding alone does not justify authorship • All authors should qualify and all who qualify should be authors. • Each author should have participated sufficiently to take public responsibility for the content ICMJE website: www.icmje.org/index.html

4. AUTHOR CONTRIBUTIONS: ANNALS • Conception and design • Analysis and interpretation of the data • Drafting of the article • Critical revision of the article • Final approval of the article • Provision of study materials or patients • Statistical expertise • Obtaining of funding • Administrative, technical, or logistical support • Collection and assembly of data

5. Authorship and accountability • Contributorship • Listed authors deserve authorship • Independence • The authors enjoyed the prerogatives of scientists • Responsibility • For the aftercare of the article, including corrections and retractions.

6. The role of journals • Scientists, corporate sponsors, and journals each have a responsibility to the public. • The journal: veracity, transparency • A journal’s reputation enhances the credibility of the articles it publishes. • It has a special role in holding others to account

7. Accurate representation of accountability • In science, the author is accountable • The author’s reputation (and interest in retaining it) is the best assurance of accurate reporting and honest science. • To varying degrees, a corporate sponsor is responsible for • Study design, Analysis, Content of manuscript, Decision to submit the article

8. Misrepresentation of accountability • The authors are leaders in the field • Their peers assume they have the independence of a scientist . • If they don’t, • The credibility of the study rests on a false premise • The journal becomes an accomplice in misleading the public

9. Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts (URM) • International Committee of Medical Journal Editors • Established 1979 • Published the Uniform Requirements • Broad concerns, to include the ethics of authorship and medical publishing • Meet annually • Update the Requirements • Take political action

10. Uniform Requirements : as revised May 2001 Authors …… scientists should not enter into agreements that interfere with their (control over the decision to publish the papers they write)access to the data or their ability to analyze the data independently, to prepare manuscripts, and to publish them. Authors should describe the role of study sponsor(s), if any, in study design……. Editors may choose not to consider an article if a sponsor has asserted control over the authors’ right to publish. Ann Intern Med. 2001;135:463-6

11. Annals of Internal MedicineConflict Notification Page Attestation of author independence/accountability Did the authors have full access to all study data, take full responsibility for accuracy of the data analysis, and have full authority over manuscript preparation and the decision to publish? ____ Yes ____ No (please explain) Information for authors. Ann Intern Med. 2002

12. Authorship and Accountability • Don’t enter into an arrangement in which you appear to be a scientist but have no control • If you do, be sure that publications represent the true relationship accurately

13. Authorship and accountability • Contributorship • Listed authors deserve authorship • Independence • The authors enjoyed the prerogatives of scientists • Responsibility • For the aftercare of the article, including corrections and retractions.

14. Scientific fraud: the Poehlman case • 204 publications; acknowledged 10 to contain faked data. • Principle: assume every article is faked until proven otherwise. • The UVM investigation • Role of co-authors • Suspect: P had access to raw data • Clean: P did not have access to raw data • Uncertain: don’t know