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

At its core, academic knowledge production is predicated on Western notions of knowledge historically grounded in a Euro-American, White, male worldview. As a component of academic knowledge production, scholarly publishing shares the same basis of Whiteness. It excludes knowledge that doesn’t conform to White, Western notions of knowledge, forces conformity to (and therefore reinforcement of) a Western standard of writing/knowledge, and leads to a reverence of peer-reviewed literature as the only sound source of knowledge. As a tool of scholarly publishing and the editorial process, blind peer review, though perhaps well-intentioned, is fraught with problems, especially for BIPOC researchers and writers, because it fails in its intended purpose to drastically reduce or eliminate bias and racism in the peer review and editorial processes; shields peer reviewers and editors against accusations of bias, racism, or conflicts of interest; and robs BIPOC, and particularly Indigenous, writers and researchers from having the opportunity to develop relationships with those that are reviewing and publishing their work.

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Conflicts of interest in biomedical publications: considerations for authors, peer reviewers, and editors

Croatian Medical Journal ◽

10.3325/cmj.2013.54.600 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 54 (6) ◽

pp. 600-608 ◽

Cited By ~ 21

Author(s):

Armen Yuri Gasparyan ◽

Lilit Ayvazyan ◽

Nurbek A. Akazhanov ◽

George D. Kitas

Keyword(s):

Conflicts Of Interest ◽

Peer Reviewers ◽

Biomedical Publications

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Conflicts of Interest and Editorial Decision-making: How Editors', Peer Reviewers', and Authors' Disclosed Conflicts Affect Decisions to Publish Manuscripts

PsycEXTRA Dataset ◽

10.1037/e520942012-018 ◽

2006 ◽

Author(s):

Elizabeth Boyd ◽

Karah Popp ◽

Kirby Lee ◽

Lisa Bero

Keyword(s):

Decision Making ◽

Conflicts Of Interest ◽

Peer Reviewers ◽

Editorial Decision

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Contextualising UK moorland burning studies: geographical versus potential sponsorship-bias effects on research conclusions

10.1101/731117 ◽

2019 ◽

Author(s):

Lee E. Brown ◽

Joseph Holden

Keyword(s):

Prescribed Burning ◽

Conflicts Of Interest ◽

Critical Assessment ◽

Policy Implications ◽

List Type ◽

Review Of The Literature ◽

Extreme Caution ◽

Geographical Variability ◽

Peer Reviewers ◽

Policy Community

AbstractIt has recently been claimed that geographical variability resulted in false conclusions from some studies examining the impacts of prescribed moorland burning, including the Effects of Moorland Burning on the Ecohydrology of River basins (EMBER) project. We provide multiple lines of evidence to contradict these claims and show that the EMBER results are reliable.A systematic review of the literature also confirms that EMBER conclusions were not out of line with the majority of other published UK studies on responses to prescribed burning of Sphagnum growth/abundance, soil properties, hydrological change, or peat exposure and erosion.We suggest that sponsorship-bias is associated with some recent research conclusions related to moorland burning. Thus, it is of grave concern when sponsorship or other potential conflicts of interest are not declared on publications related to moorland burning.We show that sponsorship and other conflicts of interest were not declared on a recent publication that criticised the EMBER project, thereby entirely undermining that critical assessment.Policy implications: The EMBER findings are robust. Our study suggests that publications on moorland burning that have been funded by pro-burning groups should be treated with extreme caution by the policy community. Publications that have been shown to have failed to declare conflicts of interest from the outset, when first submitted to a journal, should be disregarded by the policy community because peer reviewers and editors may have been unable to evaluate those pieces of work properly.

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Systematic review of content and quality of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis review articles

ERJ Open Research ◽

10.1183/23120541.00156-2018 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 4 (4) ◽

pp. 00156-2018 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Kathryn M. Milne ◽

Chrystal Chan ◽

Jolene H. Fisher ◽

Kaīssa de Boer ◽

Christopher J. Ryerson

Keyword(s):

Systematic Review ◽

Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis ◽

Pulmonary Fibrosis ◽

Conflicts Of Interest ◽

Review Articles ◽

Peer Reviewers ◽

New Evidence ◽

Article Quality ◽

Over Time

Narrative reviews are frequently accessed; however, the content and quality of review articles on idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) have not been assessed.A systematic review assessed content and quality of narrative review articles that addressed the diagnosis or management of IPF and were published from 2001 to 2015. Article recommendations were assessed relative to contemporary IPF guidelines. Quality was assessed using the DISCERN instrument.Articles were predominantly written by physicians and published in respiratory journals. Conflicts of interest and sources of funding were reported in 52% and 24% of reviews, respectively. European authors were more likely to recommend bronchoscopy (adjusted p=0.02) and were more likely to recommend pirfenidone or nintedanib prior to publication of definitive clinical trials (adjusted p=0.04). A total of 39% of management-focused articles suggested therapies that were never recommended in guidelines. Predictors of higher article quality were citation of the contemporary IPF guideline (p=0.01) and more recent publication (p=0.001).Quality of reviews increased over time; however, review articles frequently made discordant recommendations compared to IPF guidelines. These findings indicate the need for authors, peer reviewers, editors and readers to critically appraise the content and quality of narrative reviews on IPF, and the need for frequent guideline updates to reflect new evidence.

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Effect of revealing authors’ conflicts of interests in peer review: randomized controlled trial

BMJ ◽

10.1136/bmj.l5896 ◽

2019 ◽

pp. l5896 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Leslie K John ◽

George Loewenstein ◽

Andrew Marder ◽

Michael L Callaham

Keyword(s):

Randomized Controlled Trial ◽

Medical Journal ◽

Conflict Of Interest ◽

Conflicts Of Interest ◽

Controlled Trial ◽

Mean Difference ◽

Manuscript Review ◽

Randomized Controlled ◽

Quality Ratings ◽

Peer Reviewers

Abstract Objective To assess the effect of disclosing authors’ conflict of interest declarations to peer reviewers at a medical journal. Design Randomized controlled trial. Setting Manuscript review process at the Annals of Emergency Medicine. Participants Reviewers (n=838) who reviewed manuscripts submitted between 2 June 2014 and 23 January 2018 inclusive (n=1480 manuscripts). Intervention Reviewers were randomized to either receive (treatment) or not receive (control) authors’ full International Committee of Medical Journal Editors format conflict of interest disclosures before reviewing manuscripts. Reviewers rated the manuscripts as usual on eight quality ratings and were then surveyed to obtain “counterfactual scores”—that is, the scores they believed they would have given had they been assigned to the opposite arm—as well as attitudes toward conflicts of interest. Main outcome measure Overall quality score that reviewers assigned to the manuscript on submitting their review (1 to 5 scale). Secondary outcomes were scores the reviewers submitted for the seven more specific quality ratings and counterfactual scores elicited in the follow-up survey. Results Providing authors’ conflict of interest disclosures did not affect reviewers’ mean ratings of manuscript quality (M control =2.70 (SD 1.11) out of 5; M treatment =2.74 (1.13) out of 5; mean difference 0.04, 95% confidence interval –0.05 to 0.14), even for manuscripts with disclosed conflicts (M control = 2.85 (1.12) out of 5; M treatment =2.96 (1.16) out of 5; mean difference 0.11, –0.05 to 0.26). Similarly, no effect of the treatment was seen on any of the other seven quality ratings that the reviewers assigned. Reviewers acknowledged conflicts of interest as an important matter and believed that they could correct for them when they were disclosed. However, their counterfactual scores did not differ from actual scores (M actual =2.69; M counterfactual =2.67; difference in means 0.02, 0.01 to 0.02). When conflicts were reported, a comparison of different source types (for example, government, for-profit corporation) found no difference in effect. Conclusions Current ethical standards require disclosure of conflicts of interest for all scientific reports. As currently implemented, this practice had no effect on any quality ratings of real manuscripts being evaluated for publication by real peer reviewers.

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