A president in the White House and an advocate in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

On July 11, President Barack Obama became the first sitting president to publish in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). In his “special communication” entitled United States Health Care Reform: Progress to Date and Next Steps, President Obama provided insight into the successes and future of the Affordable Care Act. The content of the publication has been covered broadly by journalists at The Washington Post, NPR, The Wall Street Journal, as well as a host of other outlets, so we need not waste words rehashing the excellent reporting that can be found elsewhere.

Instead, let us concern ourselves with exorcising the confusion and misunderstanding from the conversation surrounding Obama’s recent publication, its nature, novelty, and attribution.

The novelty of a presidential publication.

A number of journalists have mistakenly credited Obama’s recent publication as the first instance of a sitting president publishing a “scholarly work” or “scientific paper”. However this is simply not true, and headlines like “Obama Becomes the First President to Publish a Science ‘Paper’, Which Is Kind Of Cute” are both misguided and wrong.

Obama has been published in a number of academic journals — in fact, this was not even his first publication in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Obama first published in JAMA as the democratic nominee, and later in The New England Journal of Medicine as a sitting president in 2012.

So how does a president publish a scientific paper?

Academic writing is an arduous and a time consuming quagmire of minutiae. While the president is an excellent writer, frequently penning his own speeches, the weighty demands of his office would provide a uniquely challenging time constraint.

Researchers, who are the heads of their own laboratories, are often referred to as principal investigators. Controversially time poor and grant rich principal investigators may hire professional medical writers to assist with the burden of academic writing.

The acknowledgements of Obama’s JAMA paper make it clear that in the bizarro world of presidential academic publishing, professional writers are legion.

Who helped write the President’s “Special Communication”?

When President Obama published in JAMA, he did not submit a research paper or a scientific letter. Instead, his contribution was a “special communication”, nefarious only in its novelty. Though some academics have expressed doubt or distress at the nature of the publication, and in particular its authorship, the special communication was published with transparency and appropriate attribution. While Obama’s article underwent rigorous fact checking and editorial review, it was not a research article, was not peer-reviewed, and did seek to meet the associated standards.

Attribution of scientific authorship is highly variable. In general, authorship is awarded for meaningful intellectual contributions to the final work, though practices vary greatly. In addition to the authors to which a scientific publication is attributed, others having made more modest contributions may be included in the acknowledgements.

It would appear that in the case of Obama’s JAMA paper, the co-authors of the paper — many of whom likely made vital and significant contributions — are listed in the acknowledgments. Though Obama is listed as the corresponding author, the contact information provided is for the Executive Office of the President. No effort has been made to hide the collaborative nature of the publication, nor should there be. As this is not by definition a research article, it does not have to follow the conventions of one, and this novel attribution of authorship need not be seen as heresy.

While in academia a single team member might be brought on to help with writing, it would appear that POTUS not surprisingly benefits from far more extensive support. The majority of those to whom contributions have been attributed are White House staff involved in communications:

Kristie Canegallo, MA

Canegallo is Assistant to the President and Deputy Chief of Staff for Implementation. She has an extensive professional history working in areas of National Security and Defense and holds a Masters of Arts from Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.

Katie Hill, BA

Hill is the White House assistant press secretary and a former member of the Human Rights Campaign’s Board of Governors. She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Classics from the University of Virginia.

Cody Keenan, MPP

Keenan is the White House Director of Speech Writing and holds a Masters in Public Policyfrom Harvard John F. Kennedy School of Government.

Jesse Lee BA.

Lee is currently employed as White House Director of Progressive Media and Online Response. Formerly he worked as the White House Online Programs Director and before that he was a member of the New Media department for President Obama’s Transition team. Prior to working for the Obama administration Lee worked in online communications for the Democratic National Convention. He is a 2002 graduate of Trinity College in Connecticut.

Shailagh Murray, MS.

Murray currently sits as a Senior Advisor to the President, having previously worked from 2011 until 2015 for Vice-President Joe Biden, first as Communications Director and Later as Deputy Chief of Staff. Prior to her work as a member of the Obama administration, Murray was a journalist working for both the Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post. Murray holds master’s degree in journalism from Northwestern University.

Obama’s acknowledged authors.

The two primary authors of Obama’s “special communication” are likely Jeanne Lambrew and Matthew Fiedler. Both have the strong academic background needed for a sophisticated analysis of the impact and progress of the Affordable Care Act.

Lambrew holds a PhD in Health Policy from the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill School of Public Health and is the former Deputy Director of the Office of Health Reform. Prior to joining the Obama administration Lambrew was a Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs faculty member and had an extensive history of academic publication.

Matthew Fiedler holds a PhD in economics from Harvard and is currently the Chief Economist of the White House Council of Economic Advisors. The publication of this new JAMA paper marks Fiedler’s second academic contribution of the year, having published an article in February in The New England Journal of Medicine.

In a traditional scientific article, Lambrew and Fiedler would likely appear as the first two authors of the papers with Obama’s name positioned last as the presidential principal investigator.

Conclusions and controversy.

If we ignore the fictions of hurried journalism, the spun controversies, slights and superlatives, it is clear that in publishing in the Journal of the American Medical Association, President Obama did not break new ground. Obama has simply continued his near decade long advocacy for health care reform and improvement, and he did so in an utterly transparent manner. In a special communication with special attribution, Obama made clear that the publication was a product of the office of the president, and that it was the result of a collaborative effort.

Sean Beatty, Ph.D. Candidate

McGill University Department of Human Genetics.

This article originally appeared on Meta Science News