The Medical Publishing Insights and Practices (MPIP) initiative and its co-sponsors recently collaborated with journal editors to characterise the persistent and perceived credibility gap in reporting industry-sponsored research and to identify potential approaches to resolve it. This round table, hosted by MPIP, reached consensus on ‘Ten Recommendations for Closing the Credibility Gap in Reporting Industry-Sponsored Clinical Research’ as reported in the May issue of Mayo Clinic Proceedings.
Attendees of the roundtable agreed that important improvements have been made in the conduct and reporting of industry-sponsored studies during the last five years, but several opportunities remain for additional improvement. These include ensuring that clinical studies and publications address clinically important questions; making public all results, including negative or unfavorable ones in a timely fashion, while avoiding redundancy; and exhibiting zero tolerance for selective or biased disclosure of research results, ghostwriting and guest authorship, and inaccurate or incomplete reporting of potential conflicts of interest.
Intended as a 'call to action' for all stakeholders, these recommendations provide a road map for authors, editors, and publishers to improve standards applicable to all medical research studies and publications by highlighting critical areas that merit attention in terms of policies, education, and other activities.
The MPIP initiative was founded in 2008 by members of the pharmaceutical industry and the International Society for Medical Publication Professionals (ISMPP) to elevate trust, transparency, and integrity in publishing industry-sponsored studies. MPIP seeks to promote more effective partnership between sponsors and journals to raise standards in medical publishing and expand access to study results.
