Purpose of this conflict of interests (COI) policy
CAM Cancer strives to attain the highest levels of objectivity and to ensure user confidence in the quality of its database content. We recognize the importance of conflicts of interest and the aims of this policy are to identify, prevent, or manage conflicts of interest.
Definition of ‘conflict of interest’
A conflict of interest (i.e. a competing interest) is any financial or non-financial interest, directly or indirectly, that could influence the research conclusions presented in a CAM Cancer publication or create a situation where a person's judgement could be unreasonably influenced by a personal interest or gain. An indirect interest may include payments that benefit an institution or department for which the person is responsible, but which are not necessarily received by the person, such as industry grants, chairs or contracts, industry sponsorship, financing of a member of staff in the department or the assignment of a task.
Scope
Disclosure represents a commitment to transparency and does not necessarily indicate a bias. To make processes manageable we ask about relationships/activities/interests related to the content of the author’s respective CAM Cancer summary in the 24 months before the declaration and those known to be going to occur during the next 12 months. “Related” means any relation with for-profit or not-for-profit third parties whose interests may be affected by the content of the summary.
Funding and interests
CAM Cancer is entirely nonprofit. It receives no commercial funding or funding from any institution or individual with a conflict of interest. (see Funding).
In line with this, CAM Cancer does not accept authors who have a financial COI or receive commercial funding for authoring summaries. Authors are paid a small fee from CAM Cancer’s core funding.
Disclosing conflict of interest
From 2023, all active authors and editors are asked to disclose any potential financial and non-financial conflicts of interest by completing and signing the following conflict-of-interest statement.
Handling of conflict of interest
Potential COI declared in the COI forms are assessed by the leadership group of NAFKAM on a case-by-case basis. The assessment follows international standard such as those of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors and Cochrane Collaboration.
