JAMA tightens conflict-of-interest disclosure rules

The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) announced in its July 12 issue that authors must disclose all potential conflicts of interest, including specific financial interests and relationships relevant to the subject of the manuscript. Beginning in January 2007, JAMA will require disclosure from all authors, including declarations of no conflicts of interest, at the time of submission.

The tightening of the journal's disclosure rules comes as JAMA ran corrections of two recently published articles because the authors did not disclose all of their drug industry ties. JAMA issued a July 12 correction disclosing the drug industry ties of the authors of a study on the use of antidepressants among pregnant women originally published in the February 1 issue.

In the July 19 issue, JAMA ran a correction to an article published in the same issue on migraines and cardiovascular disease in women. The journal also published a letter from the authors, who stated that they believed their financial relationships were not relevant to the study.

"Authors should always err on the side of full disclosure and should contact the editorial office if they have any questions or concerns about what constitutes a relevant financial interest or relationship," stated a response from the JAMA editors. "As in the past, we will continue to evaluate all cases very seriously in which authors fail to fully disclose their conflict of interest information; not only will we continue to correct the literature, but we will continue to take additional necessary action based on the results of that evaluation."

To see the JAMA conflict-of-interest disclosure policy, click here.