Conflict of Interest

A conflict of interest exists when a financial, personal, professional, or institutional relationship could reasonably be seen as influencing the research, its reporting, or its evaluation.

1. Authors must disclose in the manuscript all relevant conflicts, including employment, consultancies, stock ownership, honoraria, paid expert testimony, patents, grants, and other funding, and must state all sources of financial support. Disclosure should be made at the earliest stage possible. If there is none, the manuscript should state that the authors declare no conflict of interest.

2. Reviewers must decline to review manuscripts where they have competitive, collaborative, or other relationships with the authors or their institutions. They must keep manuscripts confidential and must not use unpublished material for personal advantage.

3. Editors must recuse themselves from manuscripts in which they have a conflict, including those from their own institution or collaborators, and ask another editor to handle the submission. Editorial decisions are not influenced by advertising, reprints, or other commercial revenue.

If a conflict is revealed after publication, JBM may publish a correction, an expression of concern, or a retraction, depending on its seriousness.