I wrote in a previous post that the W.K. Kellogg Foundation had funded the journal Childhood Obesity and asked for a seat on the editorial board.

Vicki Cohn, the journal's managing editor, says that didn't happen. In fact, it was the other way around, Cohn says. She asked Gail Christopher, a foundation vice president, to be on the board, and Christopher accepted. There are a couple of ways to regard that, but even the most charitable one still leaves the problem that began the discussion.

The foundation's income is still highly dependent on the price of its corporate benefactor's stock. And the journal is financially reliant on the foundation. That makes the journal reliant on Kellogg's stock, and if it were me, I'd want not to publish articles that might undercut my coffers.

Nothing else would appear to affect that equation, and I've heard no argument otherwise.

It is a separate, additional issue that Kellogg's, the corporation, has a representative on the editorial board. Demonstrably, article acceptance is an editorial decision, so in addition to the financial question, we now have the corporation having a direct voice in editorial decisions. That's unavoidably a concern, regardless of who broached the idea that brought it about. 

Cohn said to me in an e-mail that the journal has made no secret of its cereal affiliation, and I absolutely grant that. The journal announced the grant in a press release, and has proudly stood by it. 

It reminds me, just a bit, of when someone says "gee, Mike, you're looking kinda fat there," and when I express unhappiness, he rejoins with "I'm just being honest," as if the virtue of honesty should insulate against any umbrage. But that's sometimes why someone withholds the truth, to avoid the blowback.

Which returns me to the present case: Why is no one worried about blowback? The journal editor sees no problem with financial ties to a corporation whose products it will almost certainly have to fault. OK, so the corporation didn't ask for a seat on the editorial board, but it accepted one. Other members of the editorial board simply say they'd rather not talk about the conflict, which, to me, is tacit reaffirmation of the situation — Cohn assures me, and I believe her, that all prospective board members knew about the tie. Usually, when someone questions your ethics, you want to reply — if you think you've got any exposure, anyway.

I tried to delve into that point with Andrea Duggan, a public affairs assistant at Children's Hospital, who was speaking for Dr. David Ludwig, an editorial board member. This is a question of ethics, I emphasized. Does a "no comment" mean that Ludwig doesn't care about ethics, or that he doesn't consider this an ethical question, I pressed her. Alas, she stuck to her "no comment."

Just to be clear: I have no question whatsoever about this doctor's ethical leanings, and I don't mean to be picking on him. He's one member of the board, that's all. Two others I spoke to directly also declined to talk, and even those were off the record. But the question remains. I'd be glad to hear from others on this. Am I just being a 21st century weenie? Are we past all this conflict-of-interest bushwah?