The major medical grant-giving bodies this morning distanced themselves from the news that ghostwriting of academic papers for financial rewards is widespread.

Both The Wellcome Trust and the Medical Research Council declined to comment on cases of ghostwriting, and both pointed towards their guidelines on the subject.

The Wellcome Trust, which makes awards of £600m a year in scientific funding - 85% of which is within the UK, published their Guidelines on Good Research paper in January of this year. They are the first guidelines concerning good research practice the trust has had in place. The guidelines state that "the practice of honorary authorship is unacceptable".

From October this year the trust is also making it a condition of their grants that institutions have a written and formalised set of procedures to deal with misconduct outlined in their guidelines.

The MRC's guidelines, published in 2000 states that: "authors should have participated significantly in research to take public responsibility for the content".

A spokesperson for the MRC commenting on the guidelines Good Research Practice, said: "They are a condition of a grant, and must be obeyed. They are also a condition of employment to the people who work for us, and they would potentially face disciplinary action if they failed to abide by them."