|
Declaration of Competing Interest
and the Credibility of Nicotine and Tobacco Research
The science of nicotine and tobacco research, as does all science, needs to be beyond reproach. The presence of undeclared sources of support and financial interests has the possibility of undermining the credibility of published work regardless of whether the financial factors emanate from tobacco or non-tobacco industries. The issue of credibility is especially salient in the charged political environment in which this work is published.
The need for authors of papers submitted for peer review in biomedical science journals to declare potential sources of financial conflict of interest is being endorsed to an increasing extent. Studies of the rate of declaration of potential sources of conflict of interest in papers published in journals with stated policies suggest that it is small (1.4%) but growing in recent years. Much has been written recently about the definition of conflict of interest, ways to assess it, and methods of reporting it. The recently revised Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals: Writing and Editing for Biomedical Publication, a document developed by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors, provides us with a basis for editorial policy:
Conflict of Interest exists when an author (or the author's institution), reviewer, or editor has financial or personal relationships with other persons or organizations that inappropriately influence (bias) his or her actions;.the existence of such relationships does not necessarily represent true conflict of interest.The potential for conflict of interest can exist whether or not an individual believes that the relationship affects his or her scientific judgment. Financial relationships (such as employment, consultancies, stock ownership, honoraria, paid expert testimony, patents) are the most easily identifiable conflicts of interest and the most likely to undermine the credibility of the journal, the authors, and of science itself.
The revised guidelines continue:
All participants in the peer review and publication process must disclose all relationships that could be viewed as presenting a potential conflict of interest. Disclosure of these relationships is particularly important in connection with editorials and review articles, because bias can be more difficult to detect in those publications than in reports of original research. Editors should publish this information if they believe it will be important to readers in judging the manuscript.
Most recently, some journals are asking authors of original empirical papers to also declare that they have "had full access to all of the data in the study and take responsibility for the integrity of the data and the accuracy of the data analysis." This latter requirement appears to be especially important for industry-sponsored research studies in which the author is not an employee of the sponsoring company.
The stated policy of Nicotine & Tobacco Research is that authors must declare all sources of funding in support of the preparation of any paper submitted for peer review. The journal requires full disclosure of financial support, whether it is from the tobacco industry, the pharmaceutical or any other industry, government agencies, foundations or any other source.
Nicotine & Tobacco Research has adopted the following additional procedural steps concerning the issue of potential conflict of interest:
For Original Contributions, Brief Reports, Reviews, Letters, and Commentaries, authors will be asked to specify sources of funding for the study and to indicate whether or not the text was reviewed by the sponsor prior to submission, i.e., whether the study was written with full investigator access to all relevant data and whether the sponsor exerted editorial influence over the written text.
In addition to disclosure of direct financial support to the authors or their laboratory and prior sponsor-review of the paper, submitting authors will be asked to disclose all relevant consultancies within the 12 months prior to submission since the views expressed in the contribution could be influenced by the opinions they have expressed privately as consultants.
Articles in Nicotine & Tobacco Research are currently published with a small panel at the bottom of the first page describing the authors' affiliations.
Editors and reviewers of papers submitted to Nicotine & Tobacco Research will be asked to declare potential competing interest as a matter of standard operating procedure.
In the event that a previously undisclosed potential competing interest for an author of a published paper comes to the attention of the editors and is subsequently confirmed with the authors, the undeclared interest will be published as an erratum in a future issue. This applies to all papers submitted after December 2001.
Gary E. Swan, Ph.D.
Editor-in-Chief
Corresponding Editor for Americas, Asia, and Pacific Rim
David J. K. Balfour, Ph.D.
Corresponding Editor for Europe, Africa, and the Middle East
Written on behalf of the entire editorial board of Nicotine & Tobacco Research
October 1, 2001; modified 18 June, 2002. Authors' Declaration of Competing Interest form is included in the newly revised Author Checklist, which is now required with all submissions and resubmissions. Editors' and reviewers' declaration of competing interest will be included on the forms they submit.
|