Last autumn, McGill epidemiology professor Lucien Abenhaim released results of a study linking the weight-loss drug Redux to a rare and potentially fatal lung condition. Abenhaim's work appeared in the august New England Journal of Medicine. It had a demonstrable impact--several newspapers covered the story and Redux's manufacturer changed the packaging of the drug to indicate the risks highlighted by Abenhaim's research.
The study also led two American scientists to write a guest editorial in the same NEJM issue--an editorial that has elicited some soul searching among medical researchers.
The Americans argued that, while Abenhaim's work merited attention, few Redux users were in jeopardy and the benefits of the drug for dangerously obese patients far outweighed the risks. A subsequent Wall Street Journal article revealed that the authors of the editorial worked as consultants to companies marketing Redux in Europe--a connection not mentioned in the NEJM piece.
In a letter to the British journal, The Lancet, cardiologist Peter Wilmshurst accuses the NEJM of sloppiness. Journals ought to take greater care in examining whether their contributors have financial ties to the companies they write about, argues Wilmshurst.
Meanwhile, this month's Scientific American reports on a study by Tufts University professor Sheldon Krimsky which examined 789 articles published in 14 prominent scientific and medical journals in 1992. According to Krimsky, one-third of the papers had at least one author with a financial interest in the research published.
"We're talking about a sizable number of articles," says Krimsky. "If journals are serious about financial disclosure, they will have to do more than they're doing."