11 Oct McGill Study Finds Industry Payments Common to Peer Reviewers of Medical Journals
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Dr. Nguyen
David-Dan Nguyen MDCM MPH
Doctoral Student
Institute of Health Policy Management and Evaluation and
Resident Physician
Division of Urology
University of Toronto
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: Peer reviewers are crucial to the academic publishing process. While there’s been significant scrutiny of potential conflicts of interest among authors and editors of major journals, the potential for conflicts of interest among peer reviewers has been relatively unexplored. As such, our study aimed to quantify and characterize industry payments made to peer reviewers of top medical journals—The BMJ, JAMA, The Lancet, and The New England Journal of Medicine—to better understand the extent of these financial relationships.
MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings?
Response: We found that more than half of the US-based peer reviewers for these top journals received payments from the pharmaceutical and medical device industries between 2020 and 2022. In total, $1.06 billion was paid to these reviewers, with the vast majority for research. Nonetheless, general personal payments, such as payments for consulting, represented $64.18M. This represents a median of $7614 in personal payments per reviewer with industry ties (larger than the ~$250 for the average physicians with industry ties). We also noted gender differences in these payments with male reviewers receiving higher median payments than female reviewers. These findings highlight that financial relationships between peer reviewers of top medical journals and drug and medical device manufacturers are common and can be quite large.
MedicalResearch.com: What should readers take away from your report?
Response: Our findings indicate that industry payments to peer reviewers of leading medical journals are both common and, in some cases, substantial. It’s important to note that these payments don’t automatically signify a direct conflict of interest. Most journals do ask reviewers to disclose potential conflicts and may remove those with clear conflicts. However, the peer review process remains largely opaque, making it difficult to assess how consistently and thoroughly these disclosures are managed. Our study highlights the need for transparency and stronger oversight of conflicts of interest among peer reviewers to maintain the integrity of the review process and public trust.
MedicalResearch.com: What recommendations do you have for future research as a results of this study?
Response: Future research should explore how these financial relationships between peer reviewers and the industry influence the outcomes of peer review. Specifically, we need to understand whether industry ties correlate with more favorable reviews for industry-sponsored research or certain types of studies. There’s also a need to expand this research to include non-US reviewers and other types of industry affiliations, such as those with technology or insurance companies, which we couldn’t capture in this study.
An easy next step for most journals is to ensure that they have publicly available and clear peer-review conflict-of-interest policies. Previous research has noted a staggering lack of such publicly available policies.
MedicalResearch.com: Is there anything else you would like to add? Any disclosures?
Response: Our work highlights the need for continued transparency and accountability in the peer review process. While authors and editors are held to stringent standards of disclosure, it is equally important to apply the same level of scrutiny to peer reviewers, with transparent and potentially publicly accessible monitoring. Ensuring consistency in conflict-of-interest management will help uphold the integrity of academic publishing. As for disclosures, I have no relevant conflicts of interest related to this study.
Citation:
Nguyen D, Muramaya A, Nguyen A, et al. Payments by Drug and Medical Device Manufacturers to US Peer Reviewers of Major Medical Journals. JAMA. Published online October 10, 2024. doi:10.1001/jama.2024.17681
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Last Updated on October 11, 2024 by Marie Benz MD FAAD