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    “Transparency is almost a panacea” is a mantra in which we once had faith (doi:10.1136/bmj.329.7472.0-g).1 What’s clear (and I guess we always knew this) is that nothing is a panacea. A criticism of transparency now is that a façade of public soul baring can give authors freedom to say and write comments that are unfairly skewed in favour of the very competing interests they are declaring (doi:10.1136/bmj.n1583).2 Transparency may offer a veneer of respectability to biased arguments, plans, and strategies that go unscrutinised, which isn’t the intention. Transparency may create trust where it isn’t deserved. That’s a reason The BMJ no longer lets authors with competing interests write clinical editorials or education articles. This policy means that many good authors miss out, but it’s a point of principle that has served us and readers well since 2015.2 Apart from routinely asking authors and reviewers to declare their competing interests on all articles, …

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    • "The hope that transparency would be a panacea may have faded, if it was ever a genuine one, but transparency is still essential." @KamranAbbasi on the thorny problem of conflicts of interest New #Editor's Choice 📑 https://t.co/B6KXVIyrFa