On Otc. 30, 2025, the top international journal Science (Volume 390, Issue 6772, DOI: 10.1126/science.aec4187) published research conducted by Naomi Oreskes’s team, pointing out the rampant “ghostwriting” phenomenon in the research community, where corporations covertly prepare academic papers and publish them under the names of scholars. This not only misleads policy formulation but also endanger public safety.

The research team firstly focused on a pesticide safety paper published on 2000. This so-called “objective evaluation of glyphosate safety” paper has asserted that glyphosate is non-toxic and non-carcinogenic. However, a lawsuit in 2017 revealed that this paper was ghostwritten by Monsanto staff, which was not independent research.

More shockingly, despite the exposure of truth, the influence of this “fake paper” has not yet waned. The research statistics found that this paper has been cited by over 800 academic papers and has become the policy basis of many institutions such as the Canadian Forestry Agency and the US EPA. In 2011, when the Canadian Forestry Agency responded to the public’s question about whether glyphosate causes cancer, it directly cited the paper, stating that “it is safe and reliable”. The US EPA also determined there was no carcinogenic risk of glyphosate based on this paper, which was completely contrary to the conclusion of the IARC that “glyphosate may cause cancer”. Even Wikipedia and training data of AI model including ChatGPT have been impacted.

Apart from pesticide fields, the “ghostwriting” phenomenon in pharmaceuticals industry is even more shocking. The research found that British psychiatrist David Healy pointed out that nearly 50% of therapeutic medical papers were ghostwritten in 2004; the lawsuit in 2009 involving Wyeth was exposed, revealing that 26 papers on hormone replacement therapy (HRT) were written by ghostwriters in 2009 and these papers exaggerated the benefits of the therapy and concealed the risks, while the company was making nearly $2 billion a year from its HRT drugs; in the same year, Parke Davis was exposed for planning to publish 24 papers on anticonvulsants under the name of 24 guest authors, and finally 11 papers have been successfully published without the disclosure of the participation of corporations.

The most tragic case is undoubtedly the painkiller Vioxx. In 2007, a study proposed that a paper regarding Vioxx clinical trials published on ANNALS OF INTERNAL MEDICINE concealed the mortality data of some patients. The first author of the paper admitted that Merck company “devised, funded, and conducted the trials” and only list him as a guest editor. Later, Vioxx was withdrawn from the market due to its increased risks of heart attack and stroke. According to the investigation of FDA, the drug has caused 60,000 excess deaths.

The research unveiled that the essence of ghostwriting is fraud in scientific research. To promote products, corporations hire people to write papers and then secure academics as guest authors who commonly know nothing about the raw data and cannot judge the authenticity of conclusions. More seriously, the academic field imposes minimal penalties for such misconduct. In the Wyeth ghostwriting case, involved scholars merely received a “warning” from their universities without any practical penalty. Many scholars even consider ghostwriting as a “minor ethical issue” rather than a severe violation.

Naomi Oreskes’s team underscored that currently, the American scientific research faces crisis including funding reduction and brain drain, so it’s necessary to build a “integrity” basis. The data of 2021 from Pew research center revealed that only 11% American believe that research misconduct will be severely punished and 12% believe that researchers will truthfully disclose conflicts of interest. To restore public trust in science, the ghostwriting should be forbidden and the violators should be severely punished. At present, the research team has requested the journals to withdraw the glyphosate paper published in 2000 and the involved journal is currently under review.