Scientists Propose Central Database for Disclosing Conflicts of Interest

From the post:

In a piece appearing in the November 28 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, physicians Allan Lichter and Ross McKinney argue that a lack of standardization in COI disclosures increases the administrative burden on physicians and increases the chances of being accused of incomplete and misleading statements. As a solution, their committee — facilitated by the Institute of Medicine — recommends the creation of a centralize database for the disclosure and reporting of interests.

The Institute of Medicine report describes how such a system would work. Individuals would fill out fields that are designed for his/her functional role (e.g. as a researcher, author, reviewer, FDA advisor). The information would be stored in a secured — not public — database. Access is then facilitated when the individual provides the requester with a permit to “unlock” that record. A trusted institution may be provided with permanent access.

It’s not clear why the registry would be kept private by default. I would argue that people working on publicly funded studies, at least, should have to register publicly.