The Journal of the American Medical Association has found itself on the defensive again this week, with new revelations that authors had not disclosed their financial ties to drug companies, according to the Associated Press. The latest embarrassment comes one week after the prestigious journal announced a tougher conflict-of-interest policy that requires authors to disclose, before publication, all financial ties and affiliations with the subjects they are writing about (The Chronicle, July 12).

In last week’s issue, the journal also published a correction to a February 2005 article, written by several researchers who had received grants from antidepressant makers, that warned pregnant women of the potential dangers of discontinuing taking the drugs.

Just days after that correction was published, the journal’s editor, Catherine DeAngelis, learned that all six of the authors of an article appearing in this week’s issue, which links severe migraines to heart attacks in women, had received research funds from companies that make drugs to treat migraines or heart problems. The authors had failed to report that information because they said they didn’t feel it was relevant. That led a frustrated Dr. DeAngelis to publish yet another correction and to warn future authors to “let me decide what’s pertinent or not.”

The journal Neuropsychopharmacology has disclosed a similar problem, today’s Wall Street Journal reports, with one notable exception. One of the authors of a paper with a conflict of interest is the journal’s own editor.