Industry payments to physician journal editors

Abstract

BackgroundOpen Payments is a United States federal program mandating reporting of medical industry payments to physicians, increasing transparency of physician conflicts of interest (COI). Study objectives were to assess industry payments to physician-editors, and to compare their financial COI rate to all physicians within the specialty.Methods and findingsWe performed a retrospective analysis of prospectively collected data, reviewing Open Payments from August 1, 2013 to December 31, 2016. We reviewed general payments (“… not made in connection with a research agreement”) and research funding to “top tier” physician-editors of highly-cited medical journals. We compared payments to physician-editors and physicians-by-specialty. In 35 journals, 333 (74.5%) of 447 “top tier” US-based editors met inclusion criteria. Of these, 212 (63.7%) received industry-associated payments in the study period. In an average year, 141 (42.3%) of physician-editors received any direct payments to themselves including general payments and research payments, 66 (19.8%) received direct payments >$5,000 (National Institutes of Health threshold for a Significant Financial Interest) and 51 (15.3%) received >$10,000. Mean annual general payments to physician-editors was $55,157 (median 3,512, standard deviation 561,885, range 10–10,981,153). Median general payments to physician-editors were mostly higher compared to all physicians within their specialty. Mean annual direct research payment to the physician-editor was $14,558 (median 4,000, range 15–174,440). Mean annual indirect research funding to the physician-editor’s institution (highly valued by academic leaders such as departmental chairs and deans) was $175,282 (median 49,107, range 0.18–5,000,000). The main study limitation was difficulty identifying physician-editors primarily responsible for making manuscript decisions.ConclusionsA substantial minority of physician-editors receive payments from industry within any given year, sometimes quite large. Most editors received payment of some kind during the four-year study period. Given the extent of editors’ influences on the medical literature, more robust and accessible editor financial COI declarations are recommended.

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“…In 2015, 46% (320/703) of editors from 60 influential USA journals in six medical specialties received general payments from industry, of whom 48% (152/320) received payments of more than US$5000—the threshold considered significant by the National Institutes of Health 10. In 2013−2016, 42% (141/333) of USA-based physician-editors working in 35 journals with the highest number of citations in 2015 in seven medical specialties received industry payments within any given year 11. Median general payments to editors were mostly higher compared with all physicians within the same specialty 11.…”

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“…Such behavior represents a tension between the reviewers wishing to prevent the publication of flawed research, and the publishers who wish to publish highly topical studies on things such as the NFL. Recent research has also demonstrated that widespread industry funding for published medical research often goes undeclared, and that such conflicts of interest are not appropriately addressed by peer review [44,45].…”

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“…"desperate" to stop their publication. Recent research has also demonstrated that widespread industry funding for published medical research often goes undeclared and that such conflicts of interest are not appropriately addressed by peer review (Wong, Avalos, and Callaham 2019;Weiss and Davis 2019).…”