2 Journals to Review Editorial Policies

2003-12-21 12:21:35 AM
2 Journals to Review Editorial Policies
Tue Sep 2,11:46 AM ET Add Health - AP to My Yahoo!
By JOSEPH B. VERRENGIA, AP Science Writer
Two leading scientific journals are reviewing their editorial
policies after complaints that they published material by
researchers with undisclosed financial interests in their
research fields.
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Editors at Science, located in Washington, and London-based
Nature said none of the examples involved results of experiments.
Instead, the articles in question fall into a secondary category
of editorials, commentaries and data reviews of other scientists'
work. Generally, these are not covered by disclosure policies.
"I think there is no bombshell," said Donald Kennedy,
editor-in-chief of Science and a former Stanford University
president. He called the complaint "a useful reminder" from
"responsible critics."
The complaint about articles in recent issues of the two journals
was signed by 32 researchers and ethicists. Signers include
former New England Journal of Medicine (news - web sites) editor
Marcia Angell, who instituted stricter disclosure rules at that
publication a few years ago, complaining that drug makers and
biotech firms were exerting undue influence in medical schools.
The critics said Emory University's psychiatry chairman Charles
Nemeroff reviewed mood disorder therapies in the monthly journal
Nature Neuroscience without revealing his ownership of a patent
on one of the treatments.
Charles Jennings, executive editor of the Nature publications,
said he is considering changing Nature's disclosure rules and
pointing out in print which contributors decline to answer
disclosure questions.
But he said most of what the critics described as "academic
entrepreneurship" is appropriate and doesn't necessarily taint
research.
"Nobody should be embarrassed about commercializing their work,"
Jennings said. "It's a tremendous engine for economic growth."
Science recently published five items involving researchers who
may have financial biases, the critics said.
For example, according to the Center for Science in the Public
Interest, a Washington advocacy group, Roger Beachy of the
Danforth Plant Sciences Center in St. Louis published an
editorial supporting genetically engineered crops. Beachy and the
Danforth Center have been supported by agri-giant Monsanto, also
based in St. Louis, CSPI said
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