Studies Call Attention To Ethics Of Industry Support

Sidebar: Fourteen Journals Surveyed on Financial Interest of Authors For More Information On Academic-Industrial Collaborations Two recent studies have renewed attention on the perennial controversy over industry support of academic research. Some observers maintain that conflict-of-interest issues inherent in academic-industrial collaborations compromise scientific integrity and contribute to the public's mistrust of science, while others argue that such relationships benefit society and are a

Written byKaren Young Kreeger

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Sidebar: Fourteen Journals Surveyed on Financial Interest of Authors
For More Information On Academic-Industrial Collaborations

ENSURING HONOR:Lenoard Minsky contends that only compulsory disclosure of financial interests on research papers guarantees integrity.

One analysis, led by Sheldon Krimsky, a professor of urban and environmental policy at Tufts University, found that 34 percent of the articles examined had a first or last author from academia with a financial interest in the described research (S. Krimsky et al., Science and Engineering Ethics, 2:396-410, 1996). Virtually none of these papers made note of that relationship.

The other study, led by David Blumenthal, chief of the health policy research and development unit at Massachusetts General Hospital, found that faculty members receiving corporate funds had more peer-reviewed articles published-up to a point (D. Blumenthal et al., New England Journal of Medicine, 335:1734-9, 1996). His team also found that academics who received more than two-thirds of their ...

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