What could possibly justify a policy that requires whistle-blowers to remain silent at an accused journal's pleasure?The JAMA editorial explains that the new policy arises from a desire to "ensure a fair process of investigation and above all, to protect the integrity of science and the reputation of JAMA".
"[F]ailure rates are exceedingly high," notes a JAMA editorial.
Dr Robinson apologised in a letter published in JAMA on March 11th, blaming this omission as well as several other incidents on "errors of memory".
If JAMA is not careful how it implements its new policy, that may yet work against the first two goals.
JAMA insists that, if there is commercial sponsorship of a study, the authors must sign a form guaranteeing that they, rather than the sponsors, controlled the design, analysis and presentation of data.Other scientific journals, such as Nature and Science, have less cause for concern, since the research they report tends to be basic, rather than commercial.
Drummond Rennie, the deputy editor of JAMA, says, "We are JAMA, not the FBI or the IRS.
A series of articles published on the JAMA website this week suggested that poor regulatory design had allowed Bayer, a German company, to ignore clear signs that its cholesterol-lowering drug, Baycol, caused potentially catastrophic muscle damage when taken with certain other medicines.
That set off a fiery response from JAMA.
On his account of events, he then endured five months of silence before assuming that JAMA was not going to act he and Dr Lacasse published their revelations in a letter to the British Medical Journal (BMJ) on March 5th.
They claim JAMA threatened to cut off access to its prestigious pages as punishment, but she denies that charge.Dr Robinson now acknowledges that he served as a paid member of Forest Laboratories' speaker bureau "in 2004 and perhaps 2005".
And, on the same day, JAMA published its own correction, confirming Dr Leo's allegation and the other non-disclosures now admitted by the original authors.It appears that JAMA had intended, even before the letter from Drs Leo and Lacasse came out in the BMJ, to publish Dr Robinson's letter and its own correction on March 11th.
