Healthy Skepticism Library item: 16952

Warning: This library includes all items relevant to health product marketing that we are aware of regardless of quality. Often we do not agree with all or part of the contents.

Publication type: Journal Article

Hirsch LJ.
Conflicts of interest, authorship, and disclosures in industry-related scientific publications: the tort bar and editorial oversight of medical journals.
Mayo Clin Proc 2009 Sep; 84:(9):811-21
http://www.mayoclinicproceedings.com/content/84/9/811.full.pdf+html

Abstract:

In recent years, Mayo Clinic Proceedings has published a variety of articles dealing with important, broad-reaching matters of societal interest that impact medicine and patient care. Topics included ideal physician behaviors, gender and medical career mentoring, advance directives and end-of-life issues, physician involvement in capital punishment, and, germane to this article, institutional conflicts of interest (COIs), as well as the journal’s approach to publication of industry-sponsored clinical research.1-15 Equally important to the well-being of patients and of medicine is the legitimacy of interactions between industry sponsors of research and investigator-authors who communicate the information and the journals/editors who review and ultimately determine publication of the material. In this age of transparency, disclosure of COIs has assumed great prominence in medical journals. However, transparency is not always clear, disclosure policies are varied, and their implementation (by journals and medical societies) is asymmetric and biased. This commentary examines some prominent recent actions by consultants to plaintiffs’ attorneys and a series of publications in 3 top-tier general medical journals that illustrate selective and incomplete disclosure of conflicts�both financial and otherwise. In my view, these events call into question actions by a medical specialty society with one of the consultants and, more broadly, the editorial practices at the journals concerning COIs. Specific recommendations are offered to address the latter.nnIn April 2008, the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) published a �research� article by Ross, Hill, Egilman, and Krumholz16 that was based on materials obtained through legal discovery; the authors claimed that Merck & Co, Inc (Whitehouse Station, NJ) previously hired professional writers (termed ghostwriters) to draft papers concerning clinical trials of rofecoxib (Vioxx) and invited academic physicians to accept authorship of them (without acknowledgment of the compensated writing) to increase their credibility. These guest authors supposedly made little �

Keywords:
Authorship* Conflict of Interest* Disclosure Drug Industry/ethics* Ethics, Research Humans Industry/ethics Interinstitutional Relations Journalism, Medical/standards* Periodicals as Topic/ethics* Scientific Misconduct/ethics