Publication integrity and industry influences on the editorial process: a case study

Scholarly publishing is facing unprecedented challenges. Journal scholarly integrity and ethics have historically focused on author conduct and conflicts of interest. We address apparent journal and editor conflicts of interest. We focus on a series of events attending the publication in a peer-reviewed biomedical journal of a research article and four contemporaneously published editorials. A time series of events and questions which they engender follows the events description. We dissect and question behaviors and motivations, and accompanying transparency and accountability, and how these can affect article and journal credibility. The need for journals and scholarly publishing to recognize their own conflicts is discussed, as is the need for the science publishing to be self-correcting, in addition to science articles themselves. Author conflicts of interest and the need for attendant disclosure have become part of the publication process. Journal conflicts can be no less impactful and important, and merit the same disclosure, transparency, and rigor, in order to protect the public trust in biomedical science and publishing. When issues are encountered, science publishing needs to be self-correcting.