Meta-analyze me

January 3, 2020 5:45 PM

I'm a scientist in industry and I've been asked to write a systematic review with meta-analysis. I got the Cochrane book, and I am super-stoked about this opportunity. But I'm an industry scientist, and my company makes some of the products in the published studies to be included in the systematic review. I think I need one or more academic coauthors -- but how?

The obvious conflict of interest I and my coworkers have here would have to be mitigated somehow to have a prayer of getting this published (assuming it was otherwise publishable). The academic(s) would have to be in no way associated with my company, right? That is, we couldn't pay them, right? So why would they want to be involved? And how do I find this person? And what would they do? Thank you, scientists of MeFi!

posted by pH Indicating Socks to Science & Nature (3 answers total)

Best answer: People publish with conflicts of interest all the time, you just have to disclose them fully and honestly to the editor and in your publication - this is usually prompted in the submission process, and you can include it in the ethical statement or acknowledgments section of your manuscript.

As far as finding academic co-authors, is there anyone who you would cite a whole bunch in your meta-analysis who you could contact? They might be able to help structure the systematic review, help with contextualizing/situating your meta-analysis in a field of study, or just do some proofreading, drafting, and editing in exchange for authorship.
posted by ChuraChura at 5:53 PM on January 3, 2020 [5 favorites]

Best answer: To add to ChuraChura's good answer: a systematic review published solely by industry authors may raise eyebrows, but so long as you fully disclose your conflicts of interest, adhere to relevant guidelines (e.g. PRISMA), and make every effort to be fair and unbiased in conducting your review, you can certainly publish it. Enlisting academic co-authors can help you to the extent that they may have more experience in conducting reviews, and may balance unconscious biases that you might bring to the review, but they cannot counteract the fact that you have conflicts of interest. (And yes, you can pay them, but that will be an additional conflict of interest that they will have to disclose).
posted by googly at 7:05 PM on January 3, 2020 [1 favorite]

Best answer: Assuming you’re in the biomedical/pharma industry, there are two main resources for industry-sponsored publications:

- Good Publication Practice for Communicating Company-Sponsored Medical Research: GPP3 - link goes to the overview/summary from the International Society for Medical Publication Professionals

- The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly work in Medical Journals

Managing medical publications is my day job; feel free to memail me if you have any other questions.
posted by photovox at 8:02 PM on January 3, 2020