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February 19, 2010

Comments

Sara

I just reviewed the information about co-authors in the American Medical Association (AMA) Manual of Style, as it seems so odd that almost Amy Bishop's whole family co-authored "her" most recent paper on her UAH Web site. If anyone is interested, that Manual has a section 3.1.5 titled Order of Authorship. Guideline number 2 in that section states that "The first author has contributed the most to the work, and the last author has contributed the least."

If the publisher was using AMA style, then it would seem that one of the daughters had primary responsibility for "Amy's" last paper, and her husband had the least responsibility.

I really wonder about two things Number one: How did the first listed daughter manage to do school and also be primarily responsible for this paper? Number two: Did all the coauthors meet the criteria for authorship?

In sections 3.1 and 3.1.1, the AMA Manual discusses Authorship Responsibility and Authorship: Definition and Criteria, respectively, giving some excerpts from a JAMA article concerning authorship and ethics. The manual states the excerpts show "a deep appreciation of the basic ethical responsibilities of authorship and point to the basic ethical obligations of authorship..."

The AMA Manual indicates to me that maybe having all those family members as coauthors might have been unethical. It is hard to imagine the younger coauthors having all the listed qualifications d responsibilities that the AMA Manual describes.

This last paper that Amy was involved with was a medical, not a scientific paper, and it should have been undertaken in a serious, ethical manner. If her young kids did help out on this research and paper, it would be really interesting to know exactly what they did. I am willing to bet that whatever they did did not meet all the listed requirements in the AMA Manual of Style.

Sara

Thank you for the information. It is notable that her last paper, her only one in 2009 in a medical journal, as opposed to a scientific journal, has four co-authors who are all her family members. Also notable is that the subject matter had to do with anti-depressants, and was an apparently radically different subject from her prior work.

I am guessing that their kids got badly used and she (also husband?) was taking the studied antidepressants under the table.

I have read other peoples' blogs about Amy Bishop to get this information; but the conclusions are mine. They could be wrong.

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