The analysis centered around articles published in 2021 across JACR, Radiology, the American Journal of Roentgenology, the Journal of Vascular and Interventional Radiology, and the American Journal of Neuroradiology. Futela and co-authors examined all financial disclosures for these articles, and then for each author extracted Open Payments disclosures spanning three years prior to publication.
This produced a total of 643 articles, 4,076 authorships and 3,406 unique authors. Of those, 1,032 unique authors received industry payments in the past three years, at a median amount of $6,650 (and interquartile range of $355 to $87,725. Only 61 authors (or 4.4%) disclosed all industry relationships, 205 (14.8%) disclosed some of them, and 1,122 (80.8%) failed to report any industry ties. Undisclosed payments totaled $186,578,350 and represented about 67.2% of all payments, the authors noted.
RSNA’s Radiology had the highest proportion of authorships who disclosed at least some of their industry ties (32.3%). The Journal of Vascular and Interventional Radiology came in second (18.2%), followed by the American Journal of Neuroradiology (17.3%), JACR (13.1%), and the American Journal of Roentgenology (10.3%). “Research” accounted for the largest portion of the total pot at nearly $206 million paid to 544 authorships. The highest number of payments was in the “general” category, totaling $65 million to 1,321 authorships. Another nearly $6.9 million (to 16 authorships) made up the “ownership” category, the authors reported.
Industry partners making the largest payments to U.S. authors across the five journals included Pfizer ($42 million), GE HealthCare ($18 million), Merck Sharp & Dohme Corp. ($15 million), AbbVie ($13 million), Siemens Medical Solutions ($12 million), and AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals ($11 million).
Futela and colleagues speculated that “lack of awareness” among the field could be one reason for absent transparency. Also, most journals require the disclosure of “relevant” conflicts of interest, and some authors may not believe that previous industry payments did not impact their research.
“Failure to disclose financial relationships could be considered a departure from accepted practice to minimize bias,” the authors charged. “Perception of bias undermines public trust in biomedical research and peer review process. Increased awareness in the academic community, and potentially severe repercussions for knowingly or recklessly ignoring professional standards, may lead to higher level of compliance.”
Read much more, including potential study limitations, at the link below.