The financial ties between academic researchers and the drug/medical device companies that researchers consult and work with have been a hot topic in the news lately. Earlier this month, there was the story about how the Journal of the American Medical Association published a study about antidepressant drugs written by authors who failed to disclose their financial relationships with drug companies.

The Boston Globe yesterday did a story about the American Journal of Cardiology, which ran a supplement recommending more routine screening for heart disease risk. The authors raised money to pay for the publication of the supplement from drug companies, some of whom make cardiac drugs.

And also yesterday, a commentary in the New York Times about how Neuropsychopharmacology (in the interest of disclosure, this journal is published by Nature Publishing Group) also printed an article about a new treatment for depression without the authors’ disclosure of their financial ties with industry.

Finally, a Globe op-ed

today by David Shaywitz, an MGH endocrinologist and researcher with the Harvard Stem Cell Institute (and a regular op-ed contributor) responded to the latest airing of this ongoing issue by defending researchers who work with companies. He says that companies need their expertise to bring new products to market that will help patients. And he says that we shouldn’t just blame money as the sole source of prejudice among scientists. He points to things like the drive to publish, win grants and muscle out competitors, as well as preferences for prevailing scientific theories that can also bias a scientist’s conclusions.

Of course, scientists are humans and thus can never be 100 percent objective and unbiased. Of course there are lots of sources of bias.

But when it comes to publishing biomedical research, we’re not talking about trying to get rid of these sources of bias (although in other kinds of publishing, like journalism, there are usually policies in place to minimize bias based on financial ties. For example, business reporters aren’t allowed to invest in the companies they cover). I agree, academic-industry collaborations can be a good way for knowledge gained in the lab to make a difference in people’s lives. In publishing, we’re just talking about disclosure. And financial relationships with companies are probably one of the easiest sources of bias to identify and print in a journal.

Now, whether or not these relationships influence the credibility of the article and the work is up to the reader to decide. But we should at least give the reader the ability to make that decision for him/herself. And that means disclosure.