Journal to review cancer researchers' funding sources
The New England Journal of Medicine is reviewing whether two authors of a cancer-screening study failed to properly disclose their potential conflicts of interest.
In an October 2006 study, Dr. Claudia I. Henschke and Dr. David F. Yankelevitz, both of Weill Cornell Medical College, said annual screening with CT scanners was effective in detecting early lung cancer among smokers and former smokers but did not disclose the extent of their financial ties to the makers of CT scanners or to a foundation supported by a cigarette manufacturer.
On Monday the Journal of the American Medical Association published online a letter from the authors in which they said they had not reported in a 2006 article and a 2007 letter to the editor that they received royalty payments on imaging patents Cornell licensed to General Electric, a maker of CT scanners. JAMA editors said Monday they believe the disclosures are relevant and would have been published.
A New York Times review of tax documents for a foundation listed as supporting Henschke's research found that the cigarette maker Liggett gave the group $3.6 million in grants, a story says today.
The Boston-based New England Journal has been silent on both situations, except to say today that it is reviewing both.
"We have recently become aware of the source of the funding, which was not disclosed by the authors at the time of publication, and are reviewing both matters," spokeswoman Karen Pederson said today.
Dr. Jeffrey Drazen, editor of the New England Journal, is not talking publicly because of the review, she said.
Eric Campbell of the Massachusetts General Hospital Institute for Health Policy, who has studied conflicts of interest among individuals and institutions, said the case raises concerns about the adequacy of the disclosure system for medical research journals. He has no connections to the researchers and was commenting based on what he has read in newspapers.
"I think the journals really rely on the investigators and institutions to honor (disclosure) requirements," he said. "Those of us who do science for a living trust and believe in (disclosures) about conflicts of interest that our colleagues have made but we have no mechanisms in place to see these rules are followed."
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Elizabeth Cooney covers health for the Worcester Telegram & Gazette. She
previously reported on business and was an editor at the paper. Earlier in
her career, she edited medical books and journals at Little, Brown, and
worked for Boston magazine.Boston Globe Health and Science staff:
- Karen Weintraub, Deputy Health and Science Editor
- Gideon Gil, Health and Science Editor
- Ishani Ganguli, Short White Coat blogger
To bad the message may be overlooked if it has merit. My good friend was a smoker in his 20's and late teens. He stopped when he got married and had kids. He just died at the age of 50, Stage 3 lung cancer that had spread to his brain. He had the flu and it wouldn't clear his chest so they did an x-ray. It would seem to makes sense to identify tumors earlier and before they metastasize.
It might make sense but that doesn't make it accurate....read some articles about lead time bias and overdiagnosis.
Improved "survival" statistics have nothing to do with improved "mortality".
The concept is difficult for some folks to comprehend, but if you have common sense and read enough, it will come.
This blogger might want to review your comment before posting it.