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Jung CH, Boutros PC, Park DJ, Corcoran NM, Pope BJ, Hovens CM. Perish and publish: Dynamics of biomedical publications by deceased authors. PLoS One 2022; 17:e0273783. [PMID: 36103484 PMCID: PMC9473445 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0273783] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/08/2021] [Accepted: 08/15/2022] [Indexed: 11/18/2022] Open
Abstract
The question of whether it is appropriate to attribute authorship to deceased individuals of original studies in the biomedical literature is contentious. Authorship guidelines utilized by journals do not provide a clear consensus framework that is binding on those in the field. To guide and inform the implementation of authorship frameworks it would be useful to understand the extent of the practice in the scientific literature, but studies that have systematically quantified the prevalence of this phenomenon in the biomedical literature have not been performed to date. To address this issue, we quantified the prevalence of publications by deceased authors in the biomedical literature from the period 1990–2020. We screened 2,601,457 peer-reviewed papers from the full text Europe PubMed Central database. We applied natural language processing, stringent filtering and manual curation to identify a final set of 1,439 deceased authors. We then determined these authors published a total of 38,907 papers over their careers with 5,477 published after death. The number of deceased publications has been growing rapidly, a 146-fold increase since the year 2000. This rate of increase was still significant when accounting for the growing total number of publications and pool of authors. We found that more than 50% of deceased author papers were first submitted after the death of the author and that over 60% of these papers failed to acknowledge the deceased authors status. Most deceased authors published less than 10 papers after death but a small pool of 30 authors published significantly more. A pool of 266 authors published more than 90% of their total publications after death. Our analysis indicates that the attribution of deceased authorship in the literature is not an occasional occurrence but a burgeoning trend. A consensus framework to address authorship by deceased scientists is warranted.
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Affiliation(s)
- Chol-Hee Jung
- Melbourne Bioinformatics, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, VIC, Australia
| | - Paul C. Boutros
- Department of Human Genetics, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, United States of America
- Department of Urology, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, United States of America
- Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, United States of America
- Institute for Precision Health, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, United States of America
| | - Daniel J. Park
- Melbourne Bioinformatics, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, VIC, Australia
- Department of Biochemistry and Pharmacology, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, VIC, Australia
| | - Niall M. Corcoran
- Department of Surgery, University of Melbourne, Royal Melbourne Hospital, Parkville, VIC, Australia
- Department of Urology, Royal Melbourne Hospital, Melbourne, VIC, Australia
- Department of Urology, Western Health, Footscray, VIC, Australia
- University of Melbourne Centre for Cancer Research, Victorian Comprehensive Cancer Centre, Parkville, VIC, Australia
- Victorian Comprehensive Cancer Centre, Parkville, VIC, Australia
| | - Bernard J. Pope
- Melbourne Bioinformatics, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, VIC, Australia
- Department of Surgery, University of Melbourne, Royal Melbourne Hospital, Parkville, VIC, Australia
| | - Christopher M. Hovens
- Department of Surgery, University of Melbourne, Royal Melbourne Hospital, Parkville, VIC, Australia
- Department of Urology, Royal Melbourne Hospital, Melbourne, VIC, Australia
- University of Melbourne Centre for Cancer Research, Victorian Comprehensive Cancer Centre, Parkville, VIC, Australia
- * E-mail:
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Qiao H. A brief introduction to institutional review boards in the United States. Pediatr Investig 2018; 2:46-51. [PMID: 32851230 PMCID: PMC7331443 DOI: 10.1002/ped4.12023] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/19/2017] [Accepted: 01/02/2018] [Indexed: 11/25/2022] Open
Abstract
China has become one of the main fields for international drug and device trials in the last twenty years. Although China has greatly strengthened the protection of human research participants over this time, there is still room for improvement. In order for Chinese investigators to participate in international clinical trials, compliance with internationally recognized ethical regulations is essential. In the United States (U.S.), research involving human subjects is reviewed by an ethics committee called the Institutional Review Board (IRB). In this article, we briefly introduce the background, composition, and function of the IRB in the U.S. to our Chinese investigators.
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Affiliation(s)
- Haiping Qiao
- Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical SciencesJohn R. Oishei Children's HospitalBuffaloNYUSA
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