Ghosts in the Machine: Publication Planning in the Medical Sciences

Publication of pharmaceutical company-sponsored research in medical journals, and its presentation at conferences and meetings, is mostly governed by 'publication plans' that extract the maximum amount of scientific and commercial value out of data and analyses through carefully constructe...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:	Social studies of science 2009-04, Vol.39 (2), p.171-198
Main Author:	Sismondo, Sergio
Format:	Article
Language:	eng
Subjects:	Authorship Authorship attribution Biomedical Research - economics Business structures Clinical trials Company publications Drug Industry Drugs General points History of medicine and histology History of science and technology History of teaching and the spread of science and technology Humans Marketing Marketing of Health Services - methods Medical journals Medical Research Medications Oral and written diffusion Periodicals Periodicals as Topic Pharmaceutical industry Pharmaceutical preparations Pharmacy Publishing Publishing - ethics Publishing - standards Publishing - trends Publishing industry Research Support as Topic Scientific research
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Summary:	Publication of pharmaceutical company-sponsored research in medical journals, and its presentation at conferences and meetings, is mostly governed by 'publication plans' that extract the maximum amount of scientific and commercial value out of data and analyses through carefully constructed and placed papers. Clinical research is typically performed by contract research organizations, analyzed by company statisticians, written up by independent medical writers, approved and edited by academic researchers who then serve as authors, and the whole process organized and shepherded through to journal publication by publication planners. This paper reports on a conference of an international association of publication planners. It describes and analyzes their work in an ecological framework that relates it to marketing departments of pharmaceutical companies, medical journals and publishers, academic authors, and potential audiences. The medical research described here forms a new kind of corporate science, designed to look like traditional academic work, but performed largely to market products.
ISSN:	0306-3127 1460-3659