Content area experts as authors: helpful or harmful for systematic reviews and meta-analyses?

Ref ID 475
First Author P. C. Gøtzsche
Journal BMJ
Year Of Publishing 2012
URL https://www.bmj.com/content/345/bmj.e7031.long
Keywords Cochrane
Stakeholder
Expertise
Disclosure
Pulmonology
Problem(s) Lack of clinical expert/ stakeholder/ user perspective
Financial conflicts of interest of review authors
Number of systematic reviews included 1
Summary of Findings The authors describe difficulties with publishing the systematic review as a Cochrane review due to the withdrawal of content expert as a co-author of the review once the evidence to demonstrate the clinical and cost effectiveness of the drug was found to be insufficient. The content expert conducted the only two trials of the intervention and also had a financial conflict of interest in relation to one of the companies marketing alpha-1 antitrypsin. The authors recommend that, by default, teams performing systematic reviews and meta-analyses should not include content area experts as authors
Did the article find that the problem(s) led to qualitative changes in interpretation of the results? Not Applicable
Are the methods of the article described in enough detail to replicate the study?