http://bmj.com/cgi/content/full/323/7314/651/a
BMJ 2001;323:651 ( 22 September )
The Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts to Biomedical Journals recommend
that all published studies should include information on sources of
funding, financial conflicts of interest of the authors, and
specific descriptions of "the type and degree of involvement of
the supporting agency." Over 500 journals, including the
BMJ, subscribe to these requirements.
Gupta and her fellow contributors examined whether these requirements were
met in 268 randomised controlled trials published by the Annals
of Internal Medicine, BMJ, JAMA, the Lancet, and the New England
Journal of Medicine. Just over a third were supported wholly or in
part by industry, and only 9% failed to give the source of funding.
In the trials supported by industry a third did not provide any
information on the authors' relations with industry.
The type and degree of the involvement of the funding source was disclosed
in only 8% of cases, and all these disclosures were in the Annals of
Internal Medicine. The other journals, including the BMJ, failed
completely to disclose the nature of the involvement. The journals
did not need, said Gupta, to introduce new requirements on
disclosure of involvement of sponsors
as they did last week (15 September,
p 588)
rather, they needed to implement
the guidelines they had.
Frank Davidoff, former editor of the Annals, explained that he had been
sensitised to this issue after one set of authors repeatedly failed
to tone down their conclusions despite editorial requests. When
Davidoff phoned to ask why, they explained that the unidentified
sponsors didn't want them to do so.
Footnotes
Congress on peer review in biomedical publication Reports by Richard Smith
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