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Published online 18 June 2008 | Nature 453, 963 (2008) | doi:10.1038/453963a
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Institutes in pharma cash probe
Universities under pressure to investigate researchers' industry funding.
Until about three years ago, researchers at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, declared their financial conflicts of interest by filling in a simple form. “It basically just asked: do you have a relationship with a company that might entail a conflict of interest?” says James Siedow, Duke's vice-provost for research.
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This problem may be widespread in the States. A few years ago we uncovered evidence that our adult child was being held in a state mental hospital and used as a guinea pig for drug tests directed by a psychiatrist at a well-known university in St. Louis, MO. We filed a formal complaint with the Missouri Registration Board for the Healing Arts and eventually obtained the release of our child with a court order.
The recent Vioxx controversy should serve as an eye opener as to how important it is to strictly implement conflict of interest issue in research.
University researchers funded by industry have been prone to protect the interest of their sponsors. As such, the likelihood of making less-than-truthful statement is always in existence, especially when consumers’ well-being related to the industrial product comes under public scrutiny. Such split loyalty should be discouraged. In the same issue of Nature, the question of the integrity of researchers is also being raised. Plagiarism, result faking and cooking have always been a concern in the world of research. There are several factors leading to such malpractices – requesting for fund, securing tenure, chasing after fame… When it comes to good money, conscience has little value. (Tan Boon Tee)
At a state mental hospital in Missouri we reported evidence in late 2005 and early 2006 that: [_1._] Mental patients were used as guinea pigs for drug tests without the consent of the patient or legal guardian. [_2._] Drug companies gave all-expense-paid vacations in Hawaii to cooperative psychiatrists. Usually these vacations were disguised as technical seminars that consumed an hour or two of each vacation day. [_3._] In many cases Medicare or Medicaid was charged for the drug being tested, although about half of the patients in a study received a placebo instead. [_4._] On April 25, 2006 we were informed that the Missouri State Board of Registration for the Healing Arts "voted to close this case" involving six psychiatrists "since there appears to be insufficient evidence of a violation of the statues and rules regulating the practice of medicine."