According to the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), “Authors should avoid entering into agreements with study sponsors, both for-profit and non-profit, that interfere with authors’ access to all of the study’s data or that interfere with their ability to analyze and interpret the data and to prepare and publish manuscripts independently when and where they choose.”

For authors, upon submission, authors must list all conflicts of interest related to the work, such as sources of funding, sponsor’s role in work design, data collection, and analysis of results, and whether the authors serve on the journal’s editorial board.

For editors and reviewers, editors and reviewers must declare any possible conflicts of interest related to the manuscript, and when editorial board members publish in journals they serve, editorial boards must avoid the peer review process, allowing authors knowing that they sidestep the potential peer review process.

Editors and reviewers need to be replaced when the editor or reviewer who works in the same organization as one of the authors, is one of the authors of the work, is recused by the author, has a financial relationship with the author.