Competing interests

One of the cases cited as an example of a Nature journal’s failure to disclose corporate affiliations of authors was an exchange of correspondence in Nature Biotechnology (21, 1195–1197, 2002) concerning a commentary by David Schubert published in the October 2002 issue of the journal (Nat. Biotechnol. 21, 969, 2002). While Naturejournal policy at the time was to disclose competing interests only of authors of primary research papers, the failure to reveal industry ties in this correspondence contradicts the journal’s aim of transparency and deprives readers of information that is highly relevant to the contentious debate over genetically modified (GM) foods.

David Schubert (who has received research and consulting funds from Genentech (S. San Francisco, CA, USA) and Agouron (La Jolla, CA, USA)) focused his commentary on the potential unanticipated effects of genetic engineering on the safety of GM foods. In December, Nature Biotechnology published a reply signed by 18 scientists disputing Schubert’s arguments. At least 11 of these authors have close ties to companies that directly profit from the promotion of agricultural biotechnology.

For example, Roger Beachy, Director of the Danforth Plant Science Center (St. Louis, MO, USA), has received substantial research funding from Monsanto (St. Louis, MO) and acts as a consultant to the United Soybean Board (Chesterfield, MO, USA) and Akkadix (Lafayette, IN, USA), an agricultural gene discovery company. The Danforth Center was launched with a $70 million pledge from Monsanto, which also donated the land for the center, a 40-acre tract adjacent to its St. Louis campus valued at $11.4 million; Bruce Chassy has received research grants from major food companies and has conducted seminars for Monsanto, Mills Labs (Minneapolis, MN, USA), Unilever (Gaithersburg, MD, USA), Genencor (S. San Francisco, CA, USA), Amgen (Thousand Oaks, CA, USA), Connaught Labs (now part of Aventis, Strasbourg, France) and Transgene (Strasbourg, France); Chris Lamb is a cofounder of and science advisor to Akkadix, which also funds the John Innes Centre (Norwich, UK), of which he is the director. Akkadix has also acquired exclusive rights to a gene discovery technology developed by signer Martin Yanofsky, who, with his colleague and fellow-signer Julian Schroeder, have exclusive consulting agreements with Akkadix. Charles Santerre was funded by Monsanto to study how training on food biotechnology can change consumer attitudes favorably toward GM foods. Nature Biotechnology disclosed none of these affiliations.

Where science and policy meet, debate necessarily transcends the boundaries of scientific disciplines. Thus, when considering controversial topics like GM foods, it is essential to disclose the financial interests that may play a role in these debates.

We do not believe that industry funding necessarily undermines the quality of research or biases the opinions of those who receive this financial support. However, there have been enough studies indicating a correlation between industry funding and opinions favoring industry interests to warrant heightened attention to this potential problem.

We believe that responsible scientific publication requires routine disclosure of the potentially biasing conflicts of interest of published authors. We urge Nature journals to extend their disclosure policy to include correspondence.

Keywords: Center for Science in the Public Interest, corporate affiliation, industry funding