Research In Brief
This article was originally published in The Gray Sheet
Executive Summary
Inconsistent disclosures in stent studies: Authors did not disclose any financial ties to industry in 83% of scientific articles on coronary stents in 2006, according to a survey of 746 articles in 135 journals published by researchers at the Duke Clinical Research Institute. According to the survey results, appearing in the May issue of PlosOne, only 6% of the 2,985 authors credited in the surveyed articles disclosed a relationship in an article, and of the 75 authors who disclosed at least one financial relationship, only 2 (3%) disclosed that relationship in every article they wrote. Sixteen authors (26 articles total) disclosed a financial relationship in one article but declared they had no financial interests in another article. The survey is the first to examine the consistency of authors' disclosures in biomedical literature, Kevin Weinfurt, et al, say. "It could be argued that an inconsistent system of disclosure is more harmful than no disclosure at all," the author's argue. "The current approach creates the impression rather than the reality of transparency and may encourage underestimation of the impact of conflictions of interest on the integrity of medical science.