Who did what? Authorship and contribution in 2001

Numerous examples of irresponsible authorship are associated with the rise in the number of authors per article and with the documented rise in authorship disputes. Multiple co-investigators have become the norm, and a result is that old concepts of authorship-which, when there was but one author, automatically linked credit with accountability-have eroded. The answer, in the tradition of scientific transparency, is for authors to decide together their individual contributions and disclose these to their readers. This disclosure is now required by many major general medical journals and has been adopted by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors as the standard. (C) 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.