The Importance of Physicians' Financial Disclosure for the Public's Health.

You might ask why it is important for the public’s health that physicians and other authors disclose their financial relationships with pharmaceutical and medical device companies when they publish in biomedical, health science, and policy journals. And why is it important that the public have access to payments made to physicians by pharmaceutical and medical device companies? The short answer is that while there is no ironclad guarantee, these critical disclosures help ensure that the authors whose articles are published in peer-reviewed journals are open and honest about the funders, connections, institutions or companies, and associations related to their studies. Equally important, these disclosures give some assurance that the prescribed medications, therapies, or devices recommended in these articles provide the best options for patients and, hence, the public’s health.