From a Correspondence in this week’s Nature (448, 129; 12 July 2007)

Much emphasis has been put on the importance of policies that require authors to be transparent about financial conflicts of interest. Nature, for example, requires most authors to submit a declaration of any competing financial interests in relation to the work described in a submitted article. The reason why journals have these policies is, presumably, to safeguard the objectivity of the research. Transparency is thought to promote objectivity because if readers are aware of potential financial conflicts, they can critically evaluate the ways in which such interests may have affected the research — for example, in the selection of evidence, interpretation of results, or research methodology.

Yet transparency is insufficient as a safeguard of objectivity. Scientific expertise is necessary to correctly evaluate whether conflicts have biased the research, yet financial conflicts are revealed only when an article is published. This prevents peer-reviewers — who are in the best position to evaluate the possible influence of the conflicts on interest — from having access to the information. Thus, it is not clear to us how revealing financial interests in a statement accompanying publication of an article can allow readers to make accurate assessments of bias.

In addition, these policies foster an abrogation of scientific responsibility by the research community, because they put the burden of critical evaluation on the public, who in the main are not scientifically knowledgeable at a detailed level. This aspect is of particular concern for papers in journals such as Nature, which are likely to be widely disseminated to the public by the media. Even if biases are identified after publication and a correction made, such criticisms tend not to be publicized to the same extent as the original article.

If the aim of conflict-of-interest policies is to promote objectivity and inform readers and the public, we believe a more effective approach would be for authors to be required to reveal possible financial competing interests, not only to the public after publication, but also to reviewers during the peer-review process.

Inmaculada de Melo-Martín

Weill Cornell Medical College, New York

Kristen Intemann

Montana State University, Montana

Note from the editors: Nature’s policy is to ask peer-reviewers to exclude themselves in cases where there is a significant conflict of interest, financial or otherwise. We do not reveal authors’ competing interest declarations to peer-reviewers while the manuscript is under consideration.