Integrity is defined as a firm adherence to a code of specifically moral or artistic values.¹ It constitutes one of society’s main fundaments, if not the angular one. Recently Wislar et al published a paper on the prevalence of inappropriate authorship among the six general biomedical journals with the highest impact factors in 2008 in the BMJ; their results yielded a prevalence of articles with honorary authorship or ghost authorship, or both, of 21.0% (95 Confidence Interval 18.0% to 24.3%).² Inappropriate authorship, which constitutes a break in research integrity, is unacceptable since it betrays research’s principles, duties and ethical responsibilities to both scientific and lay society.

Inappropriate authorship presents in two main forms: as honorary authorship and as ghost authorship. The former is defined as being named as an author without having made substantial contributions and the latter as to making substantial contributions without being identified as an author.³ Likewise, according to the AMA manual of style a “substantial contribution” is defined as an important intellectual contribution, without which the work, or an important part of the work, could not have been completed or the manuscript could not have been written and submitted for publication.⁴

Health research has well defined criteria for authorship as outlined by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) in its Ethical Considerations in the Conduct and Reporting of Research. According to the ICMJE, an author is expected to have made a substantial intellectual contribution to a published study; thus enabling him to take responsibility for at least one component of the work. To help comply with this expectation the ICMJE has recommended that authorship credit should be based on fulfilling all three of the following criteria: ⁴

*Substantial contributions to conception and design, acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data.
*Drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content.
*Final approval of the version to be published.

The ICMJE also state the following on authorship: ⁵

*All persons designated as authors should qualify for authorship, and all those who qualify should be listed.
*Acquisition of funding, collection of data or general supervision of research group does not constitute authorship.
*All contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed in an acknowledgments section.

Wislar et al’s work underwent results comparison with a previous study published in 1998 by Flanagin et al in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) which addressed the prevalence of inappropriate authorship among three peer-reviewed, large circulation general medical journals and three peer-reviewed, smaller circulation journals.⁶ On a secondary analysis after adjusting for differences in both studies the overall prevalence of articles with honorary authorship was 21.7% (95% CI 18.0 to 25.8%) in 1996⁶ and 11.4% (8.0% to 16.0%) in 2008 (p=0.0008)², and the overall prevalence of articles with ghost authorship was 12.0% (9.2% to 15.4%) in 1996⁶ and 7.4% (4.8% to 11.2%) in 2008 (p=0.0497).² We, and hopefully every reader, concur with Wislar et al suggestion that even tough inappropriate authorship prevalence has declined, in order to prevent a practice that may lead to loss of public confidence additional measures by scientific journals, individual authors and academic institutions are necessary to promote responsibility and maintain integrity in scientific publications.²

Some scientific journals, such as the Neurology and European Urology have already delineated procedures in their information for authors to strengthen authorship policies and prevent inappropriate authorship from happening.^7-8 Sadly the existence of this kind of measures to increase compliance with authorship policies among the 14 Mexican edited and currently MedLine indexed journals is very low; furthermore there is no data on the prevalence of inappropriate authorship among their publications. Of these 14 journals only four explicitly outline and require proof of compliance with the ICMJE recommended criteria for authorship.^9-12 In the other hand nine journals either only mention that they follow the ICMJE Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals but fail to explicitly require proof of compliance with ICMJE recommended criteria for authorship or they not mention the ICMJE in any form at all.^13-21 For the last journal the “Boletín de estudios médicos y biológicos” a website to consult the guide for authors was not available.

In order to help reduce this type of plagiarism among scientific journals, authorship criteria must be diffused and policies to enforce appropriate authorship must be implemented by all the involved parties. These actions will translate into increased authorship transparency and increased integrity and confidence in publications of scientific research.

References

1. “Integrity.” Merriam-Webster.com. 2011. http://www.merriam-webster.com (3 Nov 2011).

2. Wislar JS, Flanagin A, Fontanarosa PB, et al. Honorary and ghost authorship in high impact biomedical journals: a cross sectional survey. BMJ 2011;343:d6128

3. Rennie D, Flanagin A. Authorship! authorship! guests, ghosts, grafters and the two-sided coin. JAMA 1994;271:469-471.

4. Flanagin A. Authorship Responsibility. In: Iverson C, Christiansen S, Flanagin A, et al. AMA Manual of Style: A Guide for Authors and Editors. 10th ed. New York, NY: Oxford University Press; 2007:127-140.

5. Authorship and Contributorship. ICMJE 2011. http://www.icmje.org/ethical_1author.html (3 Nov 2011).

6. Flanagin A, Carey L, Fontanarosa PB, et al. Prevalence of articles with honorary authors and ghost authors in peer-reviewed medical journals. JAMA 1998;280:222-224

7. Information for authors. Neurology. 2011. http://www.neurology.org/site/misc/auth2.xhtml (3 Nov 2011)

8. For Authors. Eur Urol 2011. http://www.europeanurology.com/about-the-journal/for-authors (3 Nov 2011)

9. Author Information. Arch Med Res 2011. http://www.arcmedres.com/authorinfo (5 Nov 2011)

10. Información para Autores. Salud Publica Mex 2011. bvs.insp.mx/rsp/_files/File/normas_esp.pdf (5 Nov 2011)

11. Instructions for authors. Ann Hepatol 2011. annalsofhepatology.com/Hp-instr.pdf (5 Nov 2011)

12. Instrucciones para autores. Acta Ortop Mex 2011. www.medigraphic.com/pdfs/ortope/or-instr.pdf (5 Nov 2011)

13. Instrucciones para los autores. Arch Cardiol Mex 2011. www.elsevier.es/sites/default/files/elsevier/NormOrga/293normas.pdf (5 Nov 2011)

14. Instrucciones para los autores. Rev Med Inst Mex Seguro Soc 2011. http://201.144.108.128/revista_medica/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=598:introduccion-autores&catid=69&Itemid=588 (5 Nov 2011)

15. Instrucciones para publicar. Ginecol Obstet Mex 2011. www.imbiomed.com.mx/1/instruc/Instr-Go.pdf (5 Nov 2011)

16. Normas para autores. Rev Gastroenterol Mex 2011. http://www.revistagastroenterologiamexico.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=4&Itemid=23 (5 Nov 2011)

17. Instrucciones para publicar. Gac Méd Méx 2011. imbiomed.com/1/instruc/Instr-Gm.pdf (5 Nov 2011)

18. Normas de publicación. Rev Alerg Mex 2011. www.elsevier.es/sites/default/files/elsevier/NormOrga/336normas.pdf (5 Nov 2011)

19. Instructions for authors. Rev Latinoam Microbiol 2011. http://www.medigraphic.com/rlm/lamicro/e1-miinstr.htm (5 Nov 2011)

20. Instrucciones para publicar. Rev Invest Clin 2011. www.imbiomed.com/1/instruc/Ins-2.pdf (5 Nov 2011)

21. Instrucciones para autores. Cir Cir 2011. www.nietoeditores.com.mx/download/normas/normas-cirugia%20y%20cirujanos.pdf (5 Nov 2011)