In Thursday's issue of the London-based journal, Nature editor Philip Campbell said the policy is meant to maintain public trust in the published research. Readers can decide how important potential financial conflicts are in assessing published papers, he wrote. The policy takes effect for research papers received on or after Oct. 1. It applies not only to the weekly journal, but also to Nature's seven monthly research journals specializing in such areas as genetics, neuroscience, immunology, biotechnology and cell biology. The journal gave such examples as patents, consulting fees from organizations with a stake in publication, and stock in companies that stand to gain or lose from publication.
Nature already discloses sources of funding for studies it prints.
Charles Jennings, executive editor of the Nature monthlies, said editors do not plan to use the new information in deciding whether to publish a paper. We as editors are not in a position to determine whether a particular piece of research has been distorted by financial interests,'' Jennings said. But by publishing the information, the journals will give their scientific readers a way to judge which papers to pay attention to and follow up in their own labs, he said. You might want to know what the author's financial stake in it was before deciding how much weight to put on that paper,'' he said. The journal routinely discloses whom scientists were working for when the work was done and the sources of the study's funding, he said.