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Tuesday, September 4, 2018

Financial Ties That Bind: Studies Often Fall Short On Conflict-Of-Interest Disclosures

Rachel Bluth
Kaiser Health News
Originally published August 15, 2018

Papers in medical journals go through rigorous peer review and meticulous data analysis.

Yet many of these articles are missing a key piece of information: the financial ties of the authors.

Nearly two-thirds of the 100 physicians who rake in the most money from 10 device manufacturers failed to disclose a conflict of interest in their academic writing in 2016, according to a study published Wednesday in JAMA Surgery.

The omission can have real-life impact for patients when their doctors rely on such research to make medical decisions, potentially without knowing the authors’ potential conflicts of interest.

“The issue is anytime there’s a new technology, people get really excited about it,” said lead researcher Dr. Mehraneh Jafari. “Whoever is reading the data on it needs to have the most information.”

The article is here.