My journal has a paper under review where the author reveals a saga of:

1. being recruited by the tobacco industry to conduct a study where he was named as principal investigator;
2. the industry contact on receiving the study data from our author, wrote a draft which reached conclusions with which our author strongly disagreed
3. the industry contact did not have his name on the draft paper he wrote (nor on several subsequent drafts)
4. our author refused to agree with the treatment of the data & the paper's conclusions.
5. the industry contact sacked our author but did not tell him. Our author assumed the paper had "died" from irreconcilable differences.
6. the industry contact had a well-known tobacco industry consultant then "author" the paper & send it as sole author to a journal which published it.
7. several years later, our author was alerted to the publication of the data he had collected and has taken strong exception to what he argues are highly distorted findings.
8. our author has now supplied a blow-by-blow account of events, with every step backed up by faxes, letters, data sheets etc, in addition to submitting his re-working of the data (which our reviewers saw as appropriate).

The saga paints a thoroughly disreputable picture of the behaviour of the tobacco industry (seven companies were briefed on it—documentary evidence available), the named individual in the tobacco industry, and the ring-in author who published the paper.

Question: do others believe we have an obligation to show the paper to the industry individual and the published author BEFORE publication? Or should they read it on the same terms that anyone can read it once it's published? An obvious concern is that if they get to see it, they may seek to subject it to lengthy delays by involving their lawyers. Our lawyers have seen it and are dealing with me and the author over several points where clarification is needed. But generally, it's an open & shut case.

Simon Chapman
Professor, School of Public Health
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If I understand correctly the original author has submitted a manuscript to your journal for publication of his data and his version of analysis and discussion of it. In that case I do not think it is necessary to consult the industrial party about the paper prior to publication. They can read it and/or respond to it when it is in press.

Haitham Idriss
Editor-In-Chief, Annals of Alquds Medicine
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It seems to me that your journal has no contractual or copyright relationship with the industrial party. Until published, it seems to me that the new manuscript is privileged communication. It could be shown to a third party for review, but reviewers obviously need to be disinterested, which the industrial party manifestly is not. Similarly, the published author is not a disinterested third party. If you doubt the new author, you could contact the published author for purposes of verification.

John Rodgers
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Simon, your saga is distressing and reinforces a rule that I hold to and insist that others of my research group hold to, which is strongly supported by my university lawyer: if one signs a contract with a private sector company to do research, there must be a clause in the contract saying that the author has the right to publish the findings of the study, no matter what they show. The company can have some period of time (usually 30 days) to read and comment upon the manuscript before it is submitted, but the content of the final manuscript is up to the author.

I do a lot of research in our clinical database funded by drug companies, and I firmly believe that such relationships can be both ethical and mutually beneficial, but only if the science dictates the content of the resulting manuscripts, not company profits.

Bill Tierney
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Thanks to all who have replied on this on & off-list. The arrangements made between our author and the tobacco company were not governed by a contract, but by what the author thought was goodwill. It looks to be a case of the tobacco company thinking it had an author on its line who would be prepared to look the other way while papers were ghost written for him and reached conclusions that were, shall we say, pre-planned. When he wouldn't play ball, he was passively let go and only by chance discovered that his data had been published later on by a third party recruited by the industry.

As Bill says, not the way to go about partnerships with industry. But I'm now holding a paper that spills the beans and will of course be VERY unwelcome by the tobacco industry and the ring-in author who took it over.

Simon Chapman
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