The full text of Special Articles is available to subscribers only after logging on . However, you can order the complete article. A National Survey of Policies on Disclosure of Conflicts of Interest in Biomedical Research S. Van McCrary, Cheryl B. Anderson, Jelena Jakovljevic, Tonya Khan, Laurence B. McCullough, Nelda P. Wray, Baruch A. Brody Abstract Background.
Conflicts of interest pose a threat to the integrity of scientific research.
The current regulations of the U.S. Public Health Service and the National Science Foundation require that medical schools and other research institutions report the existence of conflicts of interest to the funding agency but allow the institutions to manage conflicts internally. The regulations do not specify how to do so. Among the institutions that had policies, there was marked variation in the definition and management of conflicts. Only 8 percent had policies requiring disclosure to funding agencies, only 7 percent had such policies regarding journals, and only 1 percent had policies requiring the disclosure of information to the relevant institutional review boards or to research subjects. Only four federal agencies had policies that explicitly addressed conflicts of interest in extramural research, and all but one of the agencies relied primarily on institutional discretion.