Science is reporting this week on disgusting, self-interested publication of advertisement in the name of science. Let's hear it:

Last month, a group of scientists published a review of research on vagus nerve stimulation (VNS), a controversial treatment for depression. But the article, published in the journal Neuropsychopharmacology, omitted an important detail: All the authors are paid advisers to the company that manufactures a device for VNS that was approved last year by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

...

Nemeroff, chair of the psychiatry department at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, says he and his co-authors informed the journal about their ties to Cyberonics in Houston, Texas, manufacturer of the device. He says the failure to mention those ties in the article, as required by journal policy, was a simple "oversight." A prominent depression researcher with his thumb in many commercial pies, Nemeroff heads the "mechanism of action" advisory board at Cyberonics.

Some observers find this episode particularly troubling because not only is Nemeroff the journal's editor but also the first draft of the paper was prepared by a professional writer, hired by Cyberonics, who was not listed among the authors. (She was named in the acknowledgements.) The matter attracted considerable press coverage in late July, thanks in large part to the efforts of Bernard Carroll, former chair of psychiatry at Duke University and now at the Pacific Behavioral Research Foundation in Carmel, California. Last month, Carroll broadcast an e-mail to colleagues and the press accusing Nemeroff of running a "slick public relations disinformation campaign," hiring a "ghostwriter," and "incestuously" placing the article in his own journal.

I think Carroll has it about right. They didn't even write the paper themselves!

It's too bad there isn't a science licensing board, these guys should all have their credentials revoked. From PLoS and the lay press I hear this happens with great frequency, possibly 50% of papers regarding clinical practice are ghostwritten by drug companies. Then they put famous authors on the byline to give it credibility, sometimes paying them extravagantly for the service and simultaneously failing to mention the conflict of interest.

Any scientist who puts their name on a ghost-written paper for money should be banned, for life.