Improving truth in medical publishing
Attempts to improve honesty and avoid ethical dilemmas for researchers has moved the editorial boards of 13 leading medical and science journals to propose to eliminate the interventionist activities of the pharmaceutical industries. The distortion of scientific research results in the interest of markets and profits had reached unprecedented proportions. Canada experienced the heavy hand of influence by pharmaceutical funders when Nancy Olivieri published some negative side effects of a medication she was testing at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto. Dr. Olivieri found herself besieged by both institutional and industry vested interests.
In a joint statement, the 13 journals, including the Canadian Medical Association Journal, The Journal of the American Medical Association, the New England Journal of Medicine and the Lancet, agreed to ban publication of research they do not consider to be independent. They note that drug companies who pay for research were increasingly controlling the design, analysis of results and the publication of the findings.
Richard Horton, the editor of the Lancet, stated the process had gone too far, “We are completely fed up with being manipulated by the industry. Nine out of 10 research papers about new drugs submitted to the Lancet are so hyped in favour of the drug that we can’t publish them without revisions. Research papers are now used more as a marketing exercise than as scientific reports.”
He noted that the withdrawal of government funding of research had accentuated the problem. “But as soon as you abandon medical research and leave it to the drug industry, you are playing Russian roulette.”
The journals are concerned that the increasingly interventionist approach of pharmaceutical companies and, to a lesser extent, governments, is leaving researchers hamstrung and ethically compromised. The editors say researchers, not funders, must have control over the design of studies, access to raw data, free rein to interpret findings and the choice to publish their results or not.
The editors are also demanding the right to review study protocols and funding contracts, documents that are now often secret.
This is an important step forward, especially when it comes to breastfeeding research. It is disconcerting that many studies purporting to show problems with breastfeeding turn out to be funded by formula companies.
