Full disclosure?

The editors of the Nature group of journals have announced that they will extend their policy for disclosing financial ties to include authors of review papers, but they have not gone as far as a group of senior academics and former journal editors would like them to.Nature journals already publish statements of commercial interest for all primary papers. In the October issue of Nature Neuroscience, the journal's editors write that the journals are widening that policy in response to concerns raised by a review article published last November. The paper on treatments for mood disorders, by Charles B. Nemeroff and Michael J. Owens of Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta, included three products to which Nemeroff had significant financial ties.In February of this year, Robert T. Rubin of the Center for Neurosciences Research, Allegheny General Hospital, and Bernard J. Carroll of the Pacific Behavioral Research Foundation, wrote to the Nature group asking it to publish a letter in which they described the review author's conflicts. Charles G. Jennings, executive editor of Nature research journals, replied to them with a letter explaining that the company had no conflict of interest policy for review articles. But when their original letter went unpublished, Rubin and Carroll took it to the New York Times, whose report was followed by widespread press interest.Now, the correspondence—and the change of policy—has been made public. "We take these concerns seriously, and we are now extending our existing disclosure policy to include review articles," the Nature Neuroscience editorial says.It points out that Nemeroff and Owens did not violate existing editorial policies, "although one might argue that it would have been prudent to volunteer a disclosure statement, given the extent of their financial interests."The journal also includes a letter from the US-based Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), which had already been lobbying for Nature to change its policy. CSPI says the journals should enforce disclosure of conflicts of interest not only for authors, but for referees, and editors—similar to what is required by the journal PNAS. It also calls for rejection of submissions in which authors' conflicts are incompatible with integrity in science.The letter is signed by Michael Jacobson and Virginia Sharpe from CSPI, and on behalf of more than 20 others, including former editor of the New England Journal of Medicine, Marcia Angell, and David Suzuki, professor emeritus at the University of British Columbia. "Such a policy is a necessary safeguard against potential bias and would ensure that your readers have sufficient information to evaluate the studies, commentary, reviews, letters and other statements made in the pages of the Nature journals," they write.When CSPI suggested rejecting some papers, they were specifically thinking about reviews, Jacobson told The Scientist."There is no reason to allow scientists with conflicts of interest to author such pieces," he said via email. "Another situation might relate to the 'supplements' that some journals publish. They carry the imprimatur of the journal, but may be the proceedings of a biased conference or may be sponsored by industry with conflicts of interest."But the Nature Neuroscience editors said the journal would not be adopting that policy. "We do not believe editors should ever reject a paper simply because the author had a financial stake in its contents. Our aim is not to conduct a moral crusade, and it should be obvious to even the "purest" academics that the practical benefits of academic research cannot materialize without the help of industry."Philip Campbell, editor in chief of Nature, noted that the journal's online guidelines offer a more thorough explanation of its new policy, and suggested that the most recent statement might not be the last we hear on this subject from Nature."We are actively reviewing our policies with respect to other sections of Nature not mentioned in this statement," he told The Scientist.For Nemeroff and Rubin, who stress the views expressed in the review were not motivated by personal avarice, the affair has also triggered a change of policy: "Going forward, we intend to provide all financial disclosure information, even if it is not requested by the journal editor," they write.

Full disclosure?

review authors must now disclose financial ties, but some want tougher rules

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