The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) has announced it was misled by researchers who failed to reveal financial ties to drug companies in a study showing that pregnant women who stop taking antidepressants risk slipping back into depression. From the Associated Press:

Most of the 13 authors [of the study] have financial ties to drug companies including antidepressant makers, but only two of the them revealed their ties when the study was published in February.

Antidepressant use during pregnancy is controversial and some studies have suggested that the drugs could pose risks to the fetus.

"For readers to be able to make informed judgments about potential biases in this study, they should have been made aware of all of these associations and potential conflicts of interest," Dr. Adam Urato of Tufts University-New England Medical Center, wrote in a letter to JAMA editors …

The authors of the depression study defended their research in a separate letter to the editor published Wednesday. Lead author Dr. Lee Cohen, of Massachusetts General Hospital, who is on the speaker’s bureau for eight drug companies, disputed that such ties could influence the findings.

The business ties were not disclosed because "we did not view those associations as relevant" partly because the research was funded by the government, not industry.

This announcement doesn’t mean the study was flawed, of course, but it does make you feel nervous about the outcome, doesn’t it? I don’t want ANYTHING, a subconscious bias or something more nefarious, influencing the results of a study on the effects of antidepressant use during pregnancy. We’re talking about the safety of ourselves and our children here, and we need to feel confident about the results of these studies when we make decisions about how to be treated.