Conflict of Interest Statements (COIS) will now appear on PubMed Abstracts for all papers where indicated in publication.

New York University nutrition researcher Marion Nestle has been tracking industry-funded studies on her blog: 156 of 168 reported results that favored the funders’ interests. Annette Elizabeth Allen

This post was prompted by the following tweet:-

Too many studies have hidden conflicts of interest. A new tool makes it easier to see them. https://t.co/AOEa8CkQsf

— Dan Valen (@dnvln) April 20, 2017

The link in the above tweet takes you to

Too many studies have hidden conflicts of interest. A new tool makes it easier to see them.

PubMed, the Google of scientific search, is now publishing funding information in its abstracts.

Great post by Julia Belluz @juliaoftoronto

My immediate response on Twitter

Much needed development – 100% behind such transparency of COIs. https://t.co/9UYGmUQ6VG

— ⓪ Grⓐhⓐm Steel 🔬🎓 (@McDawg) April 20, 2017

The screenshot in Julia’s post comes from….. PubMed PubMed Updates March 2017

Of the four changes mentioned, this is the most significant.

The one example given by PubMed is from an Open Access (OA) paper indexed in PubMed Central (PMC) (additional arrow added).

“PubMed will include conflict of interest statements below the abstract when these statements are supplied by the publisher”

Emphasis mine.

Generally speaking in terms of published research papers, COIs are largely hidden towards the end (if at all). They are vitally important IMO but this is the first time I’ve seen one indexed upfront in PubMed. Going back to a key point in Julia’s post:-

We strongly urge … all journals listed in PubMed to provide information about funding sources and other possible competing interests in all abstracts. To facilitate research, the “competing interest” section should be fully searchable. Thus, PubMed would advise users about the entity or entities that funded the study and whether (a) the authors reported no competing interests; (b) the authors reported the competing interests; (c) the article did not include a competing-interests disclosure statement; or (d) the journal did not provide disclosure of funding sources or the authors’ other competing interests.

SOURCE

In short my question is, will traditional/legacy/subscription based publishers make such important information freely available or remain hidden behind their paywalls ?

+++UPDATE 1+++

I asked my long term trusted contact at NCBI/NIH if they could confirm if these will appear widely or just on OA papers like the one mentioned.

They advised “I believe it’s on papers where indicated in publication”

+++UPDATE 2+++

I did a check on 22nd April to see if this change had been fully implemented. The following randomly picked papers were checked to see if COIs were mentioned in the Abstracts on PubMed. No mention made. Having read through the full texts of these, COIs appear in all of them. Clearly, still work to do for the PubMed team.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27249641
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26631378
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25246643

Extraordinary Everyday Lives #053 Open Science

Finally tracked down this #openscience podcast but can’t listen to it. https://t.co/Q26qgHGeZN (archive saved the page but not the files)

— ⓪ Grⓐhⓐm Steel 🔬🎓 (@McDawg) April 14, 2017

@McDawg @lifekludger Try here mate https://t.co/1yaWSNtcJ5

— David N Wallace (@dnwallace) April 16, 2017

ORIGINAL SOURCE c/o WAYBACK MACHINE

Update: A shorter and hopefully clearer version salvaged from Mikes analog backup recording has been posted and feds should now be getting this clearer file.

Update: Apologies for audio quality, some interference gremlins snuck in somewhere. We are looking at fixing it up somewhat and will republish the audio as soon as that’s done.

The Extraordinary Everyday Lives Show #053 Open Science
Thurs 24th July 2008

>>>>>>>>>>>> MP3 <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

This show is all about the intersection of Technology and Human desire. This year Dave and I have been focusing on deepening connections with those we subscribe to via RSS. Having a chat on a podcast is a remarkable way of doing that we have found. Agenda is loose guide only, we are very stream of consciousness, no edits, no script kinda guys.

New intro music this show. Courtesy of Graham, one of our guests. I remixed it a bit for the intro and play the full song, Wake Up Now, after the discussions.

Open Science

Rough chronological talking points:
-mike had nothing more than a vague idea such a movement would exist prior to starting work at a University in April.
-his RSS reader provided some clues to a trail which I followed Graham Steel was one of the first to respond to my thinking out loud
-how graham and mike hooked up
-richard discovered it after posting an experiment on his labrats blog, and people got in touch.
-two sides open scientific publication & open notebook scientists
-trust and sharing of unpublished latest work
-tension between competition and openness
-openness outwards facing and inclusionary of wider community sharing of scientific data
-paradigm shift involvement with and giving something back to community
-blogging science
-use of podcasts big uptake in unis
-richard is attending a Science Blogging event at the Royal Institute in London on Saturday 30th August
www.nature.com/natureconferences/sciblog2008/index.html. One of the science communications team at USyd interviewed me (richard) this morning about this conference. Very interesting: theyre really keen on the idea here. Im also going to an Open Science meet at Southampton two days after the London meeting, organized by Cameron Neylon.
-guys will try to record and live blog the london event
-whats this about? http://blog.openwetware.org/scienceintheopen/2008/07/21/the-full-web20-experience-my-talk-tomorrow-at-iwmw-in-aberdeen/
–www.viddler.com/explore/CameronNeylon/videos/1/
-discussion about how to capture the esence of a event with blogging, podcasts etc. immediacy.
–http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=%22open+science%22&search_type=&aq=f
-going to use one of grahams songs for intro to this show http://www.macjams.com/song/34800 Wake Up Now
–http://www.music20book.com/ Gerds book
-posters in 2nd Life http://www.flickr.com/photos/mikeblogs/195285627/
-mike talks about science in the sl community. specific uses of 3d environment.what are they good for in science? rf. mike crawling thru a molecule. [dnw]
-Knol somewhere between closed and open science use? http://knol.google.com/k/knol# (A knol is an authoritative article about a specific topic.)

Graham Steel http://twitter.com/McDawg

Networking between us public, science bloggers, scientists, researchers, physicians, Journals etc.

Nature Network http://network.nature.com/profile/steelgraham
Public Library of Science (PLoS) blog http://www.plos.org/cms/blog
Open Access Directory wiki http://oad.simmons.edu/
MacJams Music Blog http://blog.macjams.com/?p=223
Personal blog http://mcblawg.blogspot.com
Do Bloggers Add a New Dimension to Conferences? http://scienceblogs.com/clock/2008/01/science_blogging_conference_vi.php


Richard Grant (twitter: rpg_twit skype: rpg7sky AIM/iChat: rpg7aim)

Nature Network http://network.nature.com/blogs/user/rpg
University of Sydney http://blogs.usyd.edu.au/labrats/ – Richards open science stuff
Personal blog http://rg-d.com/BioLOG/


LINKS and Random Stuff

The Royal Institution

http://www.science.usyd.edu.au/outreach/

http://www.oar2008.qut.edu.au/ Open access & research meeting in Brisbane towards the end of September. Some impressive names.

http://blog.openwetware.org/scienceintheopen/2008/07/21/the-full-web20-experience-my-talk-tomorrow-at-iwmw-in-aberdeen/

On the subject of technology and human desire, check out this presentation from Prof David Wishart in Canada. http://www.scribd.com/word/full/2159511?access_key=key-29c44pnl25896imfykd1 I mashed it a wee bit.

This just in:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tree.2008.05.004
Over the past few years, blogging (‘web logging’) has become a major social movement, and as such includes blogs by scientists about science. Blogs are highly idiosyncratic, personal and ephemeral means of public expression, and yet they contribute to the current practice and reputation of science as much as, if not more than, any popular scientific work or visual presentation. It is important, therefore, to understand this phenomenon.

Acknowledgements

Intro music, Wake Up Now, by steck, via macjams.com.

Image: Culture Tubes, www.flickr.com/photos/10775233@N00/107326169