Letter

A Question of Disclosure: Reply

In Reply: Dr. Torrey raises an interesting point. In fact, the journal's standard disclosure forms submitted by both authors contained the following statement: "NAMI receives financial support in part from pharmaceutical and healthcare companies, but does not endorse or promote any specific treatment, medication, service, or product." We decided not to add this information as a disclosure statement in the published article because the support in question is provided to the organization and not directly to the authors.

The decision reflects the journal's policy. Neither the editor nor the staff has the resources to make determinations about the levels of budgetary support provided by commercial interests to the variety of public, academic, and private organizations where authors work. If an author's research efforts or manuscript production are not directly supported by a commercial enterprise, then the journal does not require disclosure.

However, as Dr. Torrey points out in his letter, organizations such as NAMI that work to ensure effective care for people with mental illness have historically received large sums from pharmaceutical companies. The journal's staff and I hope that the decision not to list industry support for NAMI did not prevent our readers from assessing the validity of the authors' statements.