The Asian Network for Scientific Information adheres to the Conflict of Interest policy recommended by the ICMJE. All individuals involved with a manuscript, including authors, editors, reviewers, and commenters must declare all potential competing interests. The intent of this policy is not to prevent authors with any particular relationship or interest from publishing their work, but rather to adopt transparency such that reviewers, editors, the publisher, and, most importantly, readers can make objective judgments about the results.

Asian Network for Scientific Information defines a competing interest as anything that interferes with the complete and objective presentation, peer review, editorial decision-making, or publication of a manuscript. Competing interests can be financial, professional, or personal, and can arise in relation to an organization or an individual, such as consultancies, employment, paid expert testimony, honoraria, speakers bureaus, retainers, stock options or ownership, patents or patent applications or travel grants.

As a guide, any competing interest that arose within the five years, either before or after the commencement of the research described, within five years of the article being written, or within five years of events described in the article, should be declared. They will be listed at the end of the published articles. If an author gives no competing interests, it will read, "The author(s) declare that they have no competing interests."

We may decide not to publish a paper if we believe that the competing interests declared by the authors have compromised the objectivity or validity of the research, analyses, or interpretations in the article. If we find that authors have competing interests that were not declared upon submission, the manuscript may be rejected, be issued a formal correction, or retracted.