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New England Journal changes policies

Excerpts from the Globe's blog on the Boston-area medical community.In more fallout from publication of a lung cancer screening study, the New England Journal of Medicine has changed its procedures for disclosing potential conflicts of interests by its authors, according to The New York Times.

The Journal published a correction and an editorial in April after reports that Dr. Claudia Henschke and Dr. David Yankelevitz of Cornell had failed to reveal a potential conflict of interest and a funding source for their October 2006 article, which said screening with CT scanners was effective in detecting early lung cancer among smokers and former smokers.

The authors received royalty payments from licensing imaging patents to General Electric, maker of the CT scanners in the study. And a foundation that helped fund the study was largely supported by the parent company of Liggett Tobacco.

Last week's Times story related to a document written by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education, to The Cancer Letter, a research newsletter. It said the New England Journal and its publisher, the Massachusetts Medical Society, had erred in failing to disclose financial conflicts of interests of the authors.

In a letter to the accreditation group, the Journal's editors say that in 2006, it was not routine to publish details about pending patents, but "since that time our thinking on this issue has evolved."

Risky talk on social networking sites

Researchers studying teens and risky behaviors have followed young people onto social networking sites, where more than half of them are talking about sex, substance use, and violence, according to a new survey of MySpace.com.

A second part of the study showed how such online behavior can be changed relatively easily. Online communities such as MySpace and Facebook allow users to create personal profiles to communicate with designated friends.

Dr. Megan A. Moreno, lead author of both studies appearing in the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, and her colleagues at the University of Washington, surveyed 500 public profiles of self-described 18-year-olds.

The researchers found that 54 percent contained references to sexual activity, drinking, or drug use, or violence. In the second study, Moreno sent an e-mail to half of 190 young people from 18 to 20 years old whose public MySpace profiles included at least three references to sexual behaviors or substance use, including alcohol and tobacco.

She called herself "Dr. Meg,'' and identified herself as an adolescent medicine doctor and researcher. You seemed to be quite open about sexual issues or other behaviors such as drinking or smoking,'' the message said. "Are you sure that's a good idea? After all, if I could see it, nearly anybody could.'' A significant proportion changed their profiles.