Conflicts of Interest in Cancer Studies

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Reshma Jagsi, MD, DPhil, has found that 29% of cancer research published in high-impact journals disclosed a conflict of interest, including industry funding of the study or a study author who was an industry employee. "Given the frequency we observed for conflicts of interest and the fact that conflicts were associated with study outcomes, I would suggest that merely disclosing conflicts is probably not enough. It's becoming increasingly clear that we need to look more at how we can disentangle cancer research from industry ties," comments Jagsi. The study, which has received wide media attention, was published in the journal Cancer, online at  http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/122381054/abstract?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0

Additional authors are Nathan Sheets, Aleksandra Jankovic, Amy R. Motomura, Sudha Amarnath, and Peter A. Ubel.