Big Pharma, Research Publishers Agree to Transparency?

According to the most recent issue of Mayo Clinic Proceedings, pharmaceutical industry and publishing representatives have collaborated to develop 10 recommendations for closing the credibility gap in reporting industry-sponsored clinical research.

GlaxoSmithKline, Amgen, Novartis, Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer, the International Society for Medical Publication Professionals, the Journal of Clinical Oncology, the Annals of Internal Medicine, and the Lancet were involved.
 

The recommendations are as follows:

1. Ensure clinical studies and publications address clinically important questions
2. Make public all results, including negative or unfavorable ones, in a timely fashion, while avoiding redundancy 
3. Improve understanding and disclosure of authors' potential conflicts of interest 
4. Educate authors on how to develop quality manuscripts and meet journal expectations 
5. Improve disclosure of authorship contributions and writing assistance and continue education on best publication practices to end ghostwriting and guest authorship 
6. Report adverse event data more transparently and in a more clinically meaningful manner 
7. Provide access to more complete protocol information 
8. Transparently report statistical methods used in analysis 
9. Ensure authors can access complete study data, know how to do so, and can attest to this 
10. Support the sharing of prior reviews from other journals

Bonnie and Steve: We'll believe it when we see it.