New JAMA policy says whistle-blowers should stay silent while conflict-of-interest investigations are ongoing

The Journal of the American Medical Association has announced that it will instruct anyone filing a complaint about potential conflicts of interest of a study author to refrain from contacting third parties or the media about the allegation until the journal investigates the matter, the Wall Street Journal reports.

The policy comes after JAMA was criticized for taking five months to acknowledge that the author of an antidepressant study published last year failed to disclose a financial relationship with the drug's manufacturer. While JAMA investigated the matter, the physician who made the complaint wrote about the disclosure problem in the journal BMJ.

In an editorial published online Friday, JAMA editors wrote that the BMJ article represented a "serious breach of confidentiality," and that going forward, anyone "complaining" about an author's failure to disclose conflicts of interest will "be specifically informed that he/she should not reveal this information to third parties or the media while an investigation is under way." According to JAMA, discussing potential conflicts of interests hurts the journal's ability "to complete a fair and thorough investigation" and "potentially damages JAMA's reputation by the insinuation" that the journal would fail to investigate.

The policy "drew criticism from editors at other journals and fuels a debate about the role of medical journals in policing financial conflicts of researchers," according to the Wall Street Journal. Jerome Kassirer, a Tufts University professor and former editor of the New England Journal of Medicine, said, "There is nothing that should distract a whistle-blower from blowing the whistle when they think it is appropriate or necessary." BMJ editor Fiona Godlee called the policy a "dangerous position." She said, "No one group or organization should have a monopoly on investigating a piece of work" (Armstrong, Wall Street Journal, 3/23).

The JAMA editorial is available online (.pdf).