The Immune Feeling of Researchers to Conflicts of Interest

Critics of the California stem cell agency have fresh scientific evidence to bolster their contention that the institute should require additional financial disclosure from members of its working groups.

The latest support comes via an Aug. 4 article in the Wall Street Journal by reporter Shirley S. Wang. She asks the question: "Why do many researchers feel they're immune to conflicts of interest?"

Answer:

"Just as we fool ourselves into thinking we're more ethical, kind and generous than we are, so scientists can be blind to the very real possibility that their work is inappropriately influenced by financial ties. These psychological processes usually operate so subtly that people aren't aware that such ties can bias their judgment.

"Receiving gifts and money creates the desire, often unconscious, to give something back, says Max Bazerman of Harvard Business School. Even small gifts can have an influence. Charities that send out free address labels, for example, get more in donations than those that don't. Customers who are given a 50-cent key chain at a pharmacy spend substantially more in the store.

"Conflicts can be hard to recognize, because 'cognitive bias' comes into play. 'The mind has an enormous ability to see the world as we want,' says Dr. Bazerman."

Wang continues:

"Studies of psychiatric drugs by researchers with a financial conflict of interest -- receiving speaking fees, owning stock, or being employed by the manufacturer -- are nearly five times as likely to find benefits in taking the drugs as studies by researchers who don't receive money from the industry, according to a review of 162 studies published last year in the American Journal of Psychiatry. Studies that the industry funded, but in which the researchers had no other financial ties, didn't have significantly different results than nonindustry-funded studies.

"Studies can be designed in ways that boost the likelihood that results will come out a certain way, says Lisa Bero of the University of California, San Francisco. A new treatment can be compared with a placebo, instead of with a treatment already in use, making finding a significant statistical difference between the two more likely. Dosage and timing of medications, which make a big difference in their effectiveness and side effects, can also be manipulated, she says."

Wang's article attracted attention on the blog of the editors of the American Journal of Bioethics, which described it as "excellent." That site also linked to another related piece by Catherine DeAngelis, editor of the Journal of the American Medical Association, in which she discusses "the sometimes unethical influence of money on medical science, a very serious issue, which has become more evident over the past year or so."

Would more CIRM disclosure from scientists and physicians eliminate conflicts of interest? Certainly not, but it would tell the public when potential conflicts exist. Public disclosure would also allow other interested parties and the public to understand the financial webs surrounding often highly vaunted research. And as we know, from time to time, the early raves for therapies do not stand up to scrutiny for a host of unsavory reasons.
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