Pharma Paid $1.06 Billion to Reviewers at Top Medical Journals

By Brenda Baletti, Ph.D.

The pharmaceutical industry paid $1.06 billion to reviewers at top medical journals between 2020 and 2022, according to a research letter published last week in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).

Payments to peer reviewers for The BMJ, JAMA, The Lancet and The New England Journal of Medicine included $1 billion to individuals or their institutions for research and $64.18 million in general payments, including travel and meals. Consulting fees and speaking compensation accounted for $34.31 million and $11.80 million respectively.

Among the nearly 2,000 physician peer reviewers analyzed, more than half received at least one industry payment between 2020 and 2022.

Although conflicts of interest among journal editors and authors have been investigated, the study authors wrote, any conflicts of interest the peer reviewers may have have been harder to assess.

“The traditionally opaque nature” of peer review has hindered the evaluation of peer reviewers, “despite their crucial role in academic publishing,” the authors wrote.

The typical conflict-of-interest policies most journals have for authors — requiring only that they disclose their conflicts — do not usually apply to peer reviewers, according to the JAMA study.

Journal editors may inquire about those conflicts, but they rarely publicly disclose them — even though many reviewers for top journals may have industry ties “due to their academic expertise,” the authors wrote.

Link

https://publichealthpolicyjournal.com/pharma-paid-1-06-billion-to-reviewers-at-top-medical-journals/