Lab Honchos Deserve Authorship?

When Ian Wilmut of Dolly the Cloned Sheep fame admitted in court (in an case inrelated to Dolly) that he deserved only 66 percent of the credit for cloning Dolly, several media outlets reported on what it might mean. Is his lead authorship inappropriate? Or, is that just the way it is? Lab directors get credit for research because of their position, regardless of how much of the actual work he or she might have done?

Some scientists who were involved in the cloning of Dolly are coming forward to say that is indeed the status quo, but it should change. From The Scientist:

Miodrag Stojkovic, deputy director of Principe Felipe Centro de Investigacion in Valencia, Spain, said Wilmut took too much credit and should not have been first author. "Yes, this is common practice in scientific publishing," he told The Scientist. "But, in my opinion, it is not fair practice." Stojkovic created the UK's first cloned human embryo while working at Newcastle University, but left earlier this year for Spain in part because he felt a colleague took too much credit for his team's work.

The Scientist also reports that Angelika Schnieke, the second author on the Dolly paper and a PhD student at the time, said Wilmut didn't deserve to be first author, and should have given more credit to the other researchers involved.