Academics who lend their names to medical and scientific articles ghostwritten by the pharmaceutical industry should be charged with fraud under the the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), according to two University of Toronto Faculty of Law professors.

The pharmaceutical industry often conducts research, but allows academic experts to submit it to scientific journals under their own name. Although medical professionals and academics have called for these ‘guest authors’ to be sanctioned by journals, academic institutions and regulatory agencies, their recommendations have not been widely embraced.

‘It’s a prostitution of their academic standing,’ Professor Trudo Lemmens said. ‘And it undermines the integrity of the entire academic publication system.’

In an article published Tuesday in PLoS Medicine, Professors Simon Stern and Trudo Lemmens argued that, ‘guest author’s claim for credit of an article written by someone else constitutes legal fraud, and may give rise to claims that could be pursued in a class action based on the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act.’

‘Guest authorship is a disturbing violation of academic integrity standards, which form the basis of scientific reliability,’ they claimed. ‘Pharmaceutical sponsors borrow the names of academic experts precisely because of the value and prestige attached to the presumed integrity and […]