Relationships among commercial practices and author conflicts of interest in biomedical publishing

Abstract

Recently, concerns have been raised over the potential impacts of commercial relationships on editorial practices in biomedical publishing. Specifically, it has been suggested that certain commercial relationships may make editors more open to publishing articles with author conflicts of interest (aCOI). Using a data set of 128,781 articles published in 159 journals, we evaluated the relationships among commercial publishing practices and reported author conflicts of interest. The 159 journals were grouped according to commercial biases (reprint services, advertising revenue, and ownership by a large commercial publishing firm). 30.6% (39,440) of articles were published in journals showing no evidence of evaluated commercial publishing relationships. 33.9% (43,630) were published in journals accepting advertising and reprint fees; 31.7% (40,887) in journals owned by large publishing firms; 1.2% (1,589) in journals accepting reprint fees only; and 2.5% (3,235) in journals accepting only advertising fees. Journals with commercial relationships were more likely to publish articles with aCOI (9.2% (92/1000) vs. 6.4% (64/1000), p = 0.024). In the multivariate analysis, only a journal's acceptance of reprint fees served as a significant predictor (OR = 2.81 at 95% CI, 1.5 to 8.6). Shared control estimation was used to evaluate the relationships between commercial publishing practices and aCOI frequency in total and by type. BCa-corrected mean difference effect sizes ranged from-1.0 to 6.1, and confirm findings indicating that accepting reprint fees may constitute the most significant commercial bias. The findings indicate that concerns over the influence of industry advertising in medical journals may be overstated, and that accepting fees for reprints may constitute the largest risk of bias for editorial decision-making.

Methods for Extracting Relational Data from Unstructured Texts Prior to Network Visualization in Humanities Research

“…Specifically, available data indicate that the biasing effects of COI may be magnified when authors and the study itself are funded by the same industry sources [1]. Similarly, an analysis using the approach described in this article has found that author COI rates are associated with certain industry payments to biomedical journals [13]. While a network modelling approach has not yet been used to further explore COI broadly, these findings suggest that such an approach might be quite promising.…”

“…Below we describe the PML parser in more detail. The PML parser will be most readily applicable for other projects in the humanities, and the functionality of the HMA parser is fully explained in [13]. Following the explanation of parser components, we offer a more complicated parsing example.…”

Evidence for stratified conflicts of interest policies in research contexts: a methodological review

“…Although we are aware of studies that evaluate COI magnitude, for example, they were not returned by our search strategy either because they treat COI magnitude in the aggregate 43 or because they assess non-target outcomes such as associations with commercial publishing practices. 44 Additionally, AMC guidelines are designed to respond to COI risks in multiple domains including research, clinical practice and medical education. We assume that COI strata related to industry-funded continuing medical education or pharmaceutical representative access to AMCs are designed primarily to address risks of bias associated with medical education and clinical practice.…”

“…Our review evaluates the methodological design and approaches to variable stratification for studies of the relationships between industry funding or author COI and four specified outcomes of interest in biomedical research. Although we are aware of studies that evaluate COI magnitude, for example, they were not returned by our search strategy either because they treat COI magnitude in the aggregate43 or because they assess non-target outcomes such as associations with commercial publishing practices 44. Additionally, AMC guidelines are designed to respond to COI risks in multiple domains including research, clinical practice and medical education.…”

Promoting integrity in scholarly research and its publication: International Endodontic Journal policy on reporting conflicts of interest, funding and acknowledgements within manuscripts submitted for publication

“…The readers of peer‐reviewed manuscripts are more trusting of authors who disclose their conflicts of interest because it can demonstrate both honesty and expertise (Graham et al, 2020). In an attempt to ensure the transparency and quality of the papers they publish, several leading medical and dental journals, including the Journal of the American Medical Association ( JAMA) and the International Endodontic Journal , have adopted a policy of declaring potential sources of conflicts of interest (Fontanarosa & Bauchner, 2017).…”