Whistle-blowing in Medical Journals
In order to respond to allegations of COI related to studies published in its journal, the Journal of the American Medical Association, is instructing those alleging COI to keep quiet until the Journal can fully investigate the claims.
- Wall Street Journal: Medical Journal Decries Public Airing of Conflicts
- Bloomberg: Medical Journal Seeks to Silence Whistleblowers During Probes
As these new stories rightly note (in particular, the WSJ story), such a policy raises important concerns about how journals can and should deal with claims of COI. Should it be only the journals who should investigate? What if they take many months (which is a long time in medical publishing) to investigate, and don’t appear, at least to some in the academic community, to be taking the issue sufficiently seriously? Finally, what about the place for a more vigilant peer-review academic community?
P.S., see this commentary in the Economist – Pity the messenger – which notes that,
The JAMA editorial explains that the new policy arises from a desire to “ensure a fair process of investigation and above all, to protect the integrity of science and the reputation of JAMA.” The first two goals are laudable, but the rule of silence seems designed with the third, rather more self-serving, goal in mind. If JAMA is not careful how it implements its new policy, that may yet work against the first two goals.
P.P.S (July 9): To follow-up, it looks like JAMA has backed down a bit on their policy: JAMA Eases Stand on Public Complaints About Conflicts; here’s the revised COI policy.
