Industry payments to physician journal editors

Area of Science:

• Medical Ethics
• Health Policy
• Scientific Publishing

Background:

• The Open Payments program enhances transparency in the medical industry by tracking payments to physicians.
• Physician-editors play a crucial role in shaping medical literature and practice.
• Understanding financial conflicts of interest (COI) among physician-editors is vital for maintaining scientific integrity.

Purpose of the Study:

• To quantify industry payments received by physician-editors.
• To compare the financial COI rates of physician-editors with those of physicians across various specialties.
• To assess the extent of financial relationships between medical journal editors and the healthcare industry.

Main Methods:

• Retrospective analysis of Open Payments data from August 2013 to December 2016.
• Inclusion of general payments and research funding for "top tier" physician-editors of highly-cited journals.
• Comparative analysis of payments received by physician-editors versus physicians by specialty.

Main Results:

• Out of 333 physician-editors analyzed, 63.7% received industry payments during the study period.
• Annually, 42.3% of physician-editors received direct payments, with 19.8% exceeding $5,000.
• Median general payments to physician-editors were often higher than for physicians in the same specialty.

Conclusions:

• A significant portion of physician-editors receive substantial industry payments.
• The findings underscore the prevalence of financial COI among influential medical editors.
• Recommendations include enhancing the robustness and accessibility of financial COI declarations for physician-editors.