Full disclosure: the antidote to conflict of interest

Disclosure of potential conflict of interest.

Does Conflict of Interest Disclosure Worsen Bias?

On March 13, 2012 PLoS Medicine published an analysis by Lisa Cosgrove and Sheldon Krimsky [1] that examined the financial conflicts of interest of members of the American Psychiatric Association (APA) responsible for updating the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), the so-called bible of psychiatry. Despite a new APA policy designed to address conflicts of interest (CO...

The unintended consequences of conflict of interest disclosure.

CONFLICTS OF INTEREST, BOTH FINANCIAL AND NONfinancial, are ubiquitous in medicine, and the most commonly prescribed remedy is disclosure. The Medicare Payment Advisory Commission and the Accountable Care Act impose a range of disclosure requirements for physicians, and almost all medical journals now require authors to disclose conflicts of interest (although these requirements may be imperfec...

Conflict of Interest in Psychiatry: How Much Disclosure Is Necessary?

Just how “hot” is the topic of conflict of interest in psychiatry? The answer was brought home to me dramatically this past May at the APA meeting in Toronto. During the meeting, I had the opportunity to chair a symposium titled “Pharmaceutical Industry Influence in Psychiatry.” My copresenters and I showed up well ahead of time to meet and prepare introductions. As we gazed out at the empty se...

AFP's conflict of interest policy: disclosure is not enough.

Medical journals go to great lengths to ensure that authors disclose potential conflicts of interest. In research journals, financial ties between authors and the makers of drugs and medical devices are inevitable because more than half of research is funded by the pharmaceutical industry.1 However, just about all medical journals permit authors of review articles and editorials to also have su...