SCIENTIFIC JOURNALS AND THEIR AUTHORS FINANCIAL INTERESTS - A PILOT-STUDY

Background: The credibility of modem science is grounded on the percep tion of the objectivity of its scientists, but that credibility can be undermined by financial conflicts of interest. The US Public Health S ervice and the National Science Foundation issued regulations effectiv e October 1, 1995, regarding the disclosure of financial interests in the submission of grant proposals. Several scientific journals have al so established pertinent policies for authors and editors. The objecti ves of this study were: (1) to select a set of published articles and observe the degree to which a sample of authors hold a financial inter est in areas related to their research that are reportable under curre nt standards, and (2) to examine the hypothesis that significant numbe rs of authors of articles in life science and biomedical journals have verifiable financial interests that might be important for journal ed itors and readers to know. This paper measures the frequency of select ed financial interests held among lead authors of certain types of sci entific publications and assesses disclosure practices of authors and journals. Method: These objectives were applied to a pilot study of Ma ssachusetts academic scientists who were cited as first or last author in at least one article published in 1992 in 14 leading journals of c ell or molecular biology and medicine. We created a database of every original article published in 1992 by 14 leading life science and biom edical journals, supplemented by data sets consisting of (1) Massachus etts biotechnology firms, including their officers and scientific advi sory boards, and (2) scientists listed as inventors on patents or pate nt applications registered with the World Intellectual Property Organi zation. Results: We examined 1,105 university authors (first and last cited) from Massachusetts institutions whose 789 articles, published i n 1992, appeared in 14 scientific and medical journals. Authors are sa id to 'possess a financial interest' if they are listed as inventors i n a patent or patent application closely related to their published wo rk; serve on a scientific advisory board of a biotechnology company; o r are officers, directors, or major shareholders (beneficial owner of 10% or more of stock issued) in a firm that has commercial interests r elated to their research. Applying the criteria to the reference popul ation of journals and Massachusetts academic authors, we measured the following frequencies for lead authors: 0.20 for serving on a scientif ic advisory board; 0.07 for being an officer, director, or major share holder in a biotechnology firm, and 0.22 for being listed as an invent or in a related patent or patent application. The joint frequency of a rticles in the journals reviewed with a lead author that meets one of the three conditions is 0.34. Conclusions: One of every three articles in our sample has at least one Massachusetts-based author with a fina ncial interest, and 15% of the authors in our sample have a financial interest relevant to one of their publications. For the year 1992, the rate of published voluntary disclosures of financial interest (as def ined in our study) is virtually zero, but relatively few scientific an d biomedical journals at that time required any such disclosure to jou rnal editors and reviewers. Further research is needed to determine th e effectiveness of mandatory disclosure requirements by some journals.