Conflicts of interest policies for authors, peer reviewers, and editors of bioethics journals

Abstract

Background: In biomedical research, there have been numerous scandals highlighting conflicts of interest (COIs) leading to significant bias in judgment and questionable practices. Academic institutions, journals, and funding agencies have developed and enforced policies to mitigate issues related to COI, especially surrounding financial interests. After a case of editorial COI in a prominent bioethics journal, there is concern that the same level of oversight regarding COIs in the biomedical sciences may not apply to the field of bioethics. In this study, we examined the availability and comprehensiveness of COI policies for authors, peer reviewers, and editors of bioethics journals. Methods: After developing a codebook, we analyzed the content of online COI policies of 63 bioethics journals, along with policy information provided by journal editors that was not publicly available. Results: Just over half of the bioethics journals had COI policies for authors (57%), and only 25% for peer reviewers and 19% for editors. There was significant variation among policies regarding definitions, the types of COIs described, the management mechanisms, and the consequences for noncompliance. Definitions and descriptions centered on financial COIs, followed by personal and professional relationships. Almost all COI policies required disclosure of interests for authors as the primary management mechanism. Very few journals outlined consequences for noncompliance with COI policies or provided additional resources. Conclusion: Compared to other studies of biomedical journals, a much lower percentage of bioethics journals have COI policies and these vary substantially in content. The bioethics publishing community needs to develop robust policies for authors, peer reviewers, and editors and these should be made publicly available to enhance academic and public trust in bioethics scholarship.

Keywords:

• conflicts of interest
• bioethics
• academic publishing
• journal policy

Acknowledgments

We acknowledge Dr. Paul Feustel for providing advice and help with the statistical analysis and Devin Midura for help with some of the analysis of this project. We thank the three anonymous peer reviewers for helpful feedback on the article. This study began while ZM and KW were at Albany Medical College.

Disclosure statement

KW has no editorial affiliations. ES was a founding editor of BioéthiqueOnline (renamed the Canadian Journal of Bioethics in 2018) and is now a member of its Editorial Advisory Board. ZM was a former editor of the Journal of Clinical Research and Bioethics and is currently an associate editor for the Journal of Bioethical Inquiry, and on the editorial boards of Accountability in Research, the Canadian Journal of Bioethics, and World Journal of Stem Cells. DBR is currently an associate editor for Accountability in Research, a book review editor for Monash Bioethics Review, and sits on the editorial boards of Journal of Bioscience and Medicine, Advances in Medical Ethics, The Open Clinical Trials Journal, Environmental Health Insights, The Open Ethics Journal, Developing World Bioethics, American Journal of Bioterrorism, Biosecurity and Biodefense, and Medicine, Healthcare and Philosophy. BWJ is the editor‐in‐chief of the Canadian Journal of Bioethics.

Ethical approval

Institutional review boards (IRB) at both Albany Medical College (#3564) and the National Institutes of Health (OHSRP #11391) indicated that asking information from editors did not conform to the definition of human subjects research and thus did not require IRB review.

Additional information

Funding

The research undertaken here was partly supported by a research grant from the Committee on Publication Ethics (PI: ZM, Albany Medical College, and Co-I: BWJ, University of Montreal). ZM is also partly supported through the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) (UL1 TR002377) grant at Mayo Clinic. ES is supported by a collaborative fellowship from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Fonds de Recherche du Québec en Santé (FRQ-S). DBR is funded by the Intramural Program of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), National Institutes of Health (NIH). The opinions expressed in this article do not represent those of NIEHS, NIH, FRQ-S, or any governmental institution.