HOME HELP FEEDBACK SUBSCRIPTIONS ARCHIVE SEARCH TABLE OF CONTENTS		QUICK SEARCH:   [advanced] Author: Keyword(s): Year:  Vol:  Page:

This Article Full Text Full Text (PDF) Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to Personal Folders Download to citation manager Author home page(s): Andrew S. Wechsler Permission Requests Citing Articles Citing Articles via HighWire Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Wechsler, A. S. Search for Related Content PubMed Articles by Wechsler, A. S. Related Collections Professional affairs

J Thorac Cardiovasc Surg 2006;131:771-772
© 2006 The American Association for Thoracic Surgery

Editorial

Conflict of interest: What's a journal to do?

Drexel University College of Medicine, Philadelphia, Pa.

Received for publication February 13, 2006; accepted for publication February 13, 2006.

^_* Address for reprints: Andrew S. Wechsler, MD, Drexel University College of Medicine, 245 North 15th St, Room 6415, Philadelphia, PA 19102-1192. (Email: jtcvs@drexelmed.edu).

The first 20% of the full text of this article appears below.

In recent weeks, your Editor became involved in a lengthy series of E-mails and telephone conversations with a reporter from The Wall Street Journal. It seems that three articles were published by us in which the authors had clear conflicts of interest (COI) that we did not report. In one case, we failed to transmit potential conflicts disclosed by the authors. In the other two instances, my interpretation is that serious potential COIs were withheld from the Journal at the time of submission. One author had an important financial relationship with AtriCure (Cincinnati, Ohio) that he chose not to disclose. In the other instance, far more complex relationships existed that ranged from consulting agreements by some authors to authors having control over financial investments that might have profited from increased value of AtriCure stock. Both articles, regardless of how egregious the violations of our policy, survived careful peer review and generated work deemed meritorious.

As a result of this experience, I was forced to reconsider the Journal's COI policy and refresh my own knowledge of the issue. It is not my . . . [Full Text of this Article]

This article has been cited by other articles:

				M. F. McKneally Beyond disclosure: Managing conflicts of interest to strengthen trust in our profession J. Thorac. Cardiovasc. Surg., February 1, 2007; 133(2): 300 - 302. [Full Text] [PDF]