Healthy Skepticism Library item: 15364

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: news

Federal Disclosure Would Help Editors Find Cheats
Integrity In Science 2009 Mar 30
http://www.cspinet.org/integrity/watch/index.html#1

Full text:

The Center for Science in the Public Interest last week called the Journal of the American Medical Association’s effort to silence whistleblowers who officially complain when JAMA authors fail to report conflicts of interest an “unwarranted assault on freedom of speech and the press.” In a letter sent to all members of the Senate Finance Committee, CSPI called for passage of the Physician Payments Sunshine Act, which would require industry to post all payments to physicians greater than $500 in a federal database. The legislation, sponsored by Herb Kohl (D-WI) and Charles Grassley (R-IA), would give medical journal editors an easily accessible database for checking the financial conflict-of-interest disclosure information submitted by authors and reviewers and make JAMA’s misconceived policy unnecessary, the letter said. A 2004 CSPI pilot study of four leading journals showed a persistent failure by authors to disclose conflicts of interest, with JAMA having the worst record among the four.

Earlier this month, JAMA’s editors were publicly embarrassed by reports in the Wall Street Journal that they had sought to squelch public discussion of a complaint that an author had failed to disclose relevant conflicts; complained to the dean at the medical school where the whistleblower worked; and made disparaging comments to the newspaper about the whistleblower’s professional credentials. In an editorial posted online on March 20, JAMA’s editors denied making the disparaging comments to the newspaper, admitted contacting the school, and instituted a policy requiring anyone who reports to the editors that a JAMA author failed to properly disclose financial ties must remain silent while the allegations are investigated. The Wall Street Journal reported Saturday than an American Medical Association oversight committee will investigate whether JAMA’s top editors threatened the whistleblower, Jonathan Leo of Lincoln Memorial University in Harrogate, Tenn.