The Center for Science in the Public Interest has urged editors of science and medicine journals to adopt a common standard for disclosing financial conflicts of interest among their authors, editors, and peer reviewers. The nonprofit watchdog group, who's Integrity in Science Project monitors corporate influence on science, has developed a model disclosure policy with Barnett S. Kramer, Thomas F. Babor, and Wendy Cowles Husser of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, the journal Addiction, and the Journal of the American College of Surgeons; and bioethicists Arthur Caplan and Jonathan Moreno, both of University of Pennsylvania.
Scientists' undisclosed financial ties to drug or medical device companies have been a major embarrassment for medical journals in recent years. The recently announced model policy would require authors to disclose any financial relationship of any size from the previous three years. That would include any kind of employment, grant funding, consulting, travel, or paid testimony, as well as patents, stock ownership, or membership on private sector or other advisory boards. In addition to relationships with companies, authors will be required to disclose ties to nonprofit organisations that receive 50 percent or more of their funding from corporate sources. The policy also outlines an enforcement mechanism for willful violations of disclosure rules.
A 2004 CSPI investigation of leading medical and environmental journals found a consistent pattern of failures to disclose conflicts of interest. In the past four years, the Integrity in Science Watch newsletter of CSPI's Integrity in Science Project, numerous press accounts and Congressional investigations have turned up many more instances. In the wake of these scandals, several journals, including the Journal of the American Medical Association and Environmental Health Perspectives, have acted to improve their conflict-of-interest disclosure policies.
