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Science 19 December 2003:
Vol. 302. no. 5653, p. 2073
DOI: 10.1126/science.1093718
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Policy Forum

SCIENCE AND GOVERNMENT:
Disclosure in Regulatory Science

David Michaels and Wendy Wagner

The leading biomedical journals have established policies that attempt to ensure their published articles are transparent to commercial bias. Federal regulatory agencies, charged with protecting the public's health and environment, have no similar conflict-of-interest requirements. The authors of this Policy Forum urge that private parties who submit scientific studies for consideration by government agencies should be required to disclose conflicts of interest that might bias their work. They should also be required to disclose whether the data were produced by scientists who had the contractual right to publish their findings without influence and without obtaining consent of the sponsor.

D. Michaels is at the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health, George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services, Washington, DC, 20052, USA. E-mail: eohdmm{at}gwumc.edu W. Wagner is at the University of Texas School of Law, Austin, TX 78705, USA. E-mail: wwagner{at}mail.law.utexas.edu

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THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
Regulatory reinforcement of journal conflict of interest disclosures: How could disclosure of interests work better in medicine, epidemiology and public health?.
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The threat to scientific integrity in environmental and occupational medicine.
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Manufacturing Uncertainty: Contested Science and the Protection of the Public's Health and Environment.
D. Michaels and C. Monforton (2005)
Am J Public Health 95, S39-S48
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