On 2015 May 02, David Keller commented:

A question of publishing ethics: how much financial conflict of interest is too much?

Authors are required to include a list of their financial conflicts of interest at the end of each publication in most medical journals today. The monetary value of such conflicts can range from minor (such as accepting a free meal valued at $100 from a pharmaceutical sales representative) to major investments or income streams. Obviously, the latter case is of greater concern to the reader than the former, yet no information is currently provided with each publication to quantify financial conflicts. The readers, therefore, cannot distinguish between trivial conflicts versus enormous life-altering ones.

I request Dr. Caplan to provide his views on the following question: should authors be required to declare the dollar amount of each financial conflict of interest at the end of each publication, in order to help readers distinguish between trivial and major conflicts? I invite him to exercise his ethical judgement on the conflicts of interest I discussed in my comments on an article published last month, at the following link:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25636998#cm25636998_10015

with reference to the $82,000 conflict of one author. How much credibility is lost by a paper affected by a conflict of this amount?

On 2015 May 02, David Keller commented:

A question of publishing ethics: how much financial conflict of interest is too much?

Authors are required to include a list of their financial conflicts of interest at the end of each publication in most medical journals today. The monetary value of such conflicts can range from minor (such as accepting a free meal valued at $100 from a pharmaceutical sales representative) to major investments or income streams. Obviously, the latter case is of greater concern to the reader than the former, yet no information is currently provided with each publication to quantify financial conflicts. The readers, therefore, cannot distinguish between trivial conflicts versus enormous life-altering ones.

I request Dr. Caplan to provide his views on the following question: should authors be required to declare the dollar amount of each financial conflict of interest at the end of each publication, in order to help readers distinguish between trivial and major conflicts? I invite him to exercise his ethical judgement on the conflicts of interest I discussed in my comments on an article published last month, at the following link:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25636998#cm25636998_10015

with reference to the $82,000 conflict of one author. How much credibility is lost by a paper affected by a conflict of this amount?