AMA Journal To Investigate Unreported Conflicts In Article, AJP Silent

Last week I wrote about possible undisclosed conflicts of interest involving Joan Luby, a Washington University psychiatry professor, and published studies of hers in the Archives of General Psychiatry, published by the AMA, and the American Journal of Psychiatry, published by the American Psychiatric Association. I brought the possible conflicts to the attention of the journals' editors and to Luby herself.

Yesterday, I received an email from from Joseph Coyle, editor of the AGP and a psychiatry professor at Harvard University:

"I apologize for the delay in responding to your inquiry, but I was on vacation and out of email contact. We take your allegations seriously and will look into the issue."

So the AGP is going to look into Luby's possible disclosures on a paper published in the journal last month and on one from December 2003. In each case, it appears that Luby neglected to mention pharma monies it appears she'd received in accordance with the journal's conflict of interest policies. I appreciate the journal and the AMA taking this issue seriously. At the end of the day, Luby's conflicts are likely not particularly egregious, but that doesn't matter: researchers have got to be rigorously transparent in reporting conflicts and biases, particularly if they are going to go around asserting that 3-year-olds experience chronic depression.

I look forward to whatever results the AGP comes up with.

To date, I've gotten no response from the editor of the American Journal of Psychiatry nor from the APA's press office. If the AGP and AMA can take questions of unreported conflict of interest seriously, then so can the AJP and the APA. Their silence is very telling and very discouraging. Have they no interest in properly reported conflicts?

I've heard nothing from Luby.

I suppose the standard response in the blogosphere when something like the AGP investigation gets kicked off by one's own blog is to pat oneself on the back repeatedly. Not going to happen here. That kind of blog self-love is so 2005.