IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pone00/0236166.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Relationships among commercial practices and author conflicts of interest in biomedical publishing

Author

Listed:
  • S Scott Graham
  • Zoltan P Majdik
  • Dave Clark
  • Molly M Kessler
  • Tristin Brynn Hooker

Abstract

Recently, concerns have been raised over the potential impacts of commercial relationships on editorial practices in biomedical publishing. Specifically, it has been suggested that certain commercial relationships may make editors more open to publishing articles with author conflicts of interest (aCOI). Using a data set of 128,781 articles published in 159 journals, we evaluated the relationships among commercial publishing practices and reported author conflicts of interest. The 159 journals were grouped according to commercial biases (reprint services, advertising revenue, and ownership by a large commercial publishing firm). 30.6% (39,440) of articles were published in journals showing no evidence of evaluated commercial publishing relationships. 33.9% (43,630) were published in journals accepting advertising and reprint fees; 31.7% (40,887) in journals owned by large publishing firms; 1.2% (1,589) in journals accepting reprint fees only; and 2.5% (3,235) in journals accepting only advertising fees. Journals with commercial relationships were more likely to publish articles with aCOI (9.2% (92/1000) vs. 6.4% (64/1000), p = 0.024). In the multivariate analysis, only a journal’s acceptance of reprint fees served as a significant predictor (OR = 2.81 at 95% CI, 1.5 to 8.6). Shared control estimation was used to evaluate the relationships between commercial publishing practices and aCOI frequency in total and by type. BCa-corrected mean difference effect sizes ranged from -1.0 to 6.1, and confirm findings indicating that accepting reprint fees may constitute the most significant commercial bias. The findings indicate that concerns over the influence of industry advertising in medical journals may be overstated, and that accepting fees for reprints may constitute the largest risk of bias for editorial decision-making.

Suggested Citation

  • S Scott Graham & Zoltan P Majdik & Dave Clark & Molly M Kessler & Tristin Brynn Hooker, 2020. "Relationships among commercial practices and author conflicts of interest in biomedical publishing," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(7), pages 1-11, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0236166
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0236166
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0236166
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0236166&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pone.0236166?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Khaled Shawwa & Romy Kallas & Serge Koujanian & Arnav Agarwal & Ignacio Neumann & Paul Alexander & Kari A O Tikkinen & Gordon Guyatt & Elie A Akl, 2016. "Requirements of Clinical Journals for Authors’ Disclosure of Financial and Non-Financial Conflicts of Interest: A Cross Sectional Study," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(3), pages 1-12, March.
    2. George Loewenstein & Daylian M. Cain & Sunita Sah, 2011. "The Limits of Transparency: Pitfalls and Potential of Disclosing Conflicts of Interest," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(3), pages 423-428, May.
    3. Sergio Sismondo, 2007. "Ghost Management: How Much of the Medical Literature Is Shaped Behind the Scenes by the Pharmaceutical Industry?," Working Papers id:1254, eSocialSciences.
    4. Daylian M. Cain & George Loewenstein & Don A. Moore, 2005. "The Dirt on Coming Clean: Perverse Effects of Disclosing Conflicts of Interest," The Journal of Legal Studies, University of Chicago Press, vol. 34(1), pages 1-25, January.
    5. Stein J Janssen & Annelien L Bredenoord & Wouter Dhert & Marinus de Kleuver & F Cumhur Oner & Jorrit-Jan Verlaan, 2015. "Potential Conflicts of Interest of Editorial Board Members from Five Leading Spine Journals," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 10(6), pages 1-11, June.
    6. Sismondo, Sergio, 2008. "How pharmaceutical industry funding affects trial outcomes: Causal structures and responses," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 66(9), pages 1909-1914, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Kartal, Melis & Tremewan, James, 2018. "An offer you can refuse: The effect of transparency with endogenous conflict of interest," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 161(C), pages 44-55.
    2. Bazerman, Max H. & Sezer, Ovul, 2016. "Bounded awareness: Implications for ethical decision making," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 136(C), pages 95-105.
    3. Felix Gottschalk, 2021. "Regulating Markets with Advice: An Experimental Study," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 83(1), pages 1-31, February.
    4. Leuz, Christian & Malani, Anup & Muhn, Maximilian & Jakab, László, 2022. "Do conflict of interests disclosures work? Evidence from citations in medical journals," CFS Working Paper Series 702, Center for Financial Studies (CFS).
    5. Matthew Chao & Ian Larkin, 2022. "Regulating Conflicts of Interest in Medicine Through Public Disclosure: Evidence from a Physician Payments Sunshine Law," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 68(2), pages 1078-1094, February.
    6. Gürtler, Oliver & Walkowitz, Gari & Wiesen, Daniel, 2019. "Do good and talk about it! Disclosure and reward of discretionary kindness," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 161(C), pages 323-342.
    7. Sismondo, Sergio, 2008. "How pharmaceutical industry funding affects trial outcomes: Causal structures and responses," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 66(9), pages 1909-1914, May.
    8. Khadjavi, Menusch & Lange, Andreas & Nicklisch, Andreas, 2017. "How transparency may corrupt − experimental evidence from asymmetric public goods games," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 142(C), pages 468-481.
    9. Thomas G. Canace & Leigh Salzsieder & Tammie J. Schaefer, 2023. "Preventing Disclosure-Induced Moral Licensing: Evidence from the Boardroom," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 187(4), pages 841-857, November.
    10. Waqas Haque & Abu Minhajuddin & Arjun Gupta & Deepak Agrawal, 2018. "Conflicts of interest of editors of medical journals," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 13(5), pages 1-12, May.
    11. Jeremy Burke & Angela A. Hung & Jack Clift & Steven Garber & Joanne K. Yoong, 2015. "Impacts of Conflicts of Interest in the Financial Services Industry," Working Papers WR-1076, RAND Corporation.
    12. Boris Maciejovsky & David V. Budescu, 2020. "Too Much Trust in Group Decisions: Uncovering Hidden Profiles by Groups and Markets," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 31(6), pages 1497-1514, November.
    13. Tong Guo & Srinivasaraghavan Sriram & Puneet Manchanda, 2020. "“Let the Sunshine In”: The Impact of Industry Payment Disclosure on Physician Prescription Behavior," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 39(3), pages 516-539, May.
    14. Jeremy B. Griffin, 2014. "The Effects of Uncertainty and Disclosure on Auditors' Fair Value Materiality Decisions," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 52(5), pages 1165-1193, December.
    15. Muel Kaptein, 2023. "A Paradox of Ethics: Why People in Good Organizations do Bad Things," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 184(1), pages 297-316, April.
    16. Ek, Claes, 2017. "Some causes are more equal than others? The effect of similarity on substitution in charitable giving," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 136(C), pages 45-62.
    17. Lamar Pierce & Jason Snyder, 2015. "Unethical Demand and Employee Turnover," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 131(4), pages 853-869, November.
    18. Danilov, Anastasia & Biemann, Torsten & Kring, Thorn & Sliwka, Dirk, 2013. "The dark side of team incentives: Experimental evidence on advice quality from financial service professionals," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 93(C), pages 266-272.
    19. Katherine Cullerton & Jean Adams & Oliver Francis & Nita Forouhi & Martin White, 2019. "Building consensus on interactions between population health researchers and the food industry: Two-stage, online, international Delphi study and stakeholder survey," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 14(8), pages 1-17, August.
    20. Kriss, Peter H. & Nagel, Rosemarie & Weber, Roberto A., 2013. "Implicit vs. explicit deception in ultimatum games with incomplete information," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 93(C), pages 337-346.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0236166. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: plosone (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.