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Thursday, June 13, 2002The distinguished New England Journal of Medicine is relaxing its strict conflict-of-interest rules for authors of certain articles because it cannot find enough experts without financial ties to drug companies... ...Since 1990, the journal's rule was that nobody who wrote a review article or editorial could have any financial interest in a company that made a product discussed in the article, or in any competitor of such a product. Now, instead of forbidding any financial interest, the journal will forbid any "significant" stake. Its definition of significant is that agreed on by the National Institutes of Health and the Association of American Medical Colleges: payments of up to $10,000 a year are insignificant. However, stock, stock options or patent positions of any value are deemed significant, because their value can rise and there is no limit on their potential for profits. In addition, authors of such articles cannot have had "major research support or a major proportion of their funding from relevant companies" within two years of the article's publication. The editors of the Journal say that they were only able to publish one article on new drug therapuetics in the last two years because they could not find anyone without financial ties to the drug industry. Sigh. Is there no one left who has not sold their soul? posted by Sydney on 6/13/2002 06:40:00 AM 0 comments 0 Comments: |
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