To Senator Charles Grassley (R-IA) ghostwriting and plagiarism fall within the same arena of misdeed. To some bioethicists that distinction is not so clear cut. Without a doubt, Grassley and the committee he chairs in the Senate are doing the medical profession a great service by exposing the practice of medical ghostwriting — the publication of medical journal articles in which an outside writer (oftentimes paid by a drug or medical devices company whose product is being studied) has done extensive work on the article without ultimately being named on the publication.

Some argue that trying to draw similarities between plagiarizing students who willingly (or unintentionally) take credit for a scholarly academic activity without essentially performing the work behind the effort and physicians who do have knowledge of a particular drug or treatment represents a grey area. Expressing concern about the obvious harm to patients who are ultimately the target of such research, Grassley has written to administrators from at least ten medical schools asking if there is, indeed, a difference in the two scenarios.

His actions sound good in theory, but they could be hard to prove. | LINK

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