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# Medical Journals Need Better Conflict Disclosures: Article
- URL: https://www.fdaweb.com/medical-journals-need-better-conflict-disclosures-article/
- Published: 2022-05-19T12:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-09-14T17:45:13.000Z
- Author: David McFarland
- Tags: Drugs, #legacy-id-D5151854

Medical journals should beef up their transparency efforts regarding disclosures about the “relationships of authors to companies with financial interests related to topics they write about,” according to Public Citizen’s Health Research Group founder and senior advisor **Sidney Wolfe** and Weill Cornell Medical College professor **Martin F. Shapiro**. The two penned an [article](https://www.statnews.com/2022/05/19/nejm-other-journals-make-conflicts-of-interest-more-transparent-or-dont-publish/?ref=fdaweb.com) on *STAT News* that criticized the *New England Journal of Medicine* (*NEJM*) for publishing 11/2021 a commentary that strongly backed the drug industry’s position on drug pricing because it was authored by economists with drug company ties that were not adequately disclosed.

The *NEJM* article, “[Drug-Pricing Debate Redux — Should Cost-Effectiveness Analysis Be Used Now to Price Pharmaceuticals?](https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp2113323?ref=fdaweb.com)” contended that the appropriate price “is a drug’s value-based price, measured appropriately.” Wolfe and Shapiro complain that the commentary “echoes the [views of pharmaceutical manufacturers](https://oversight.house.gov/sites/democrats.oversight.house.gov/files/DRUG%20PRICING%20REPORT%20WITH%20APPENDIX%20v3.pdf?ref=fdaweb.com), whose price increases regularly exceed the inflation rate and the actual rise in production and distribution costs. This argument gives pharmaceutical companies license to charge as much as they can extract, rather that something in reasonable relationship to what it costs them to produce the product.”

Wolfe and Shapiro say that the *NEJM* “failed to make clear to readers that the authors had profound conflicts of interest directly relevant to the content of the piece, involving corporations advocating for and benefitting financially from the point of view it expressed.”

They contend that journals should not be giving drug companies free advertising by publishing opinion pieces that promote the industry’s “socially regressive business strategy.”