What does conflict of interest mean?

With the continuous expansion of the scale of science, the distance between scientific results and their practical application is getting shorter and shorter, and the boundaries between pure science and applied science are becoming increasingly blurred, while the financial requirements for research are increasing rapidly. This makes science an investment object that may bring great economic benefits. The U.S. "Bayh-Dole Patent and Trademark Amendment of 1980" is a wise move to follow this trend. Because before the adoption of this amendment, the federal government departments, for them to fund (and by them to sign a contract for the project made in the) invention, there are two ways to deal with: or will be the patent rights to the department all (commonly known as "collect the right to the policy"), or will be granted to the power to the contract unit, but the government to be The "license policy" was fully recognized by the Bayh-Dole Decree of 1980, which was followed by the Federal Government Assignment Decree of 1986. "The 1986 Federal Government Assignment Decree went one step further: it gave universities the right to patent the results of their research, while sponsoring companies were exempted from paying royalties. In this case, the enterprise funding university R& D enthusiasm is unprecedentedly high. According to the U.S. National Science Council statistics, in 1970, the university research funding, the proportion of the federal government for 70.5%, while enterprises accounted for only 2.6% of the share. By 1997, the proportion had changed to 59.6 percent for the government and 7.1 percent for business.

At the same time, universities and scientists are increasingly concerned about the commercial prospects of research results, intellectual property rights and other aspects of the problem. From the "U.S. Patent and Trademark Office" (PTO) figures show that: 1969-1997, the number of patents owned by U.S. universities and colleges is on an upward trend, and after 1980 there was a substantial increase in 1984-1989 doubled, 1989-1997 doubled again. In addition, with the strengthening of the penetration of knowledge into the economy, scientists with their own discoveries, inventions to create the practice of the company has become popular, high-tech enterprises such as sprouting up all over the place. This is just as Ready (Tinker Ready) said: "If you still think that science is just an independent activity that takes place in university laboratories and has nothing to do with corporate profits, you are at least 20 years behind.

It is against this background that the scientific community in developed countries, especially in the United States, has been rumored from time to time that some business owners and scientists are overly pursuing commercial interests that erode the objectivity of scientific research, tarnish the image of science, and jeopardize the public interest in negative events, thus making the "conflict of interest" in scientific research a major concern of the sociology and ethics of science. This has made "conflict of interest" in scientific research an important issue in the sociology and ethics of science.

Conflict of interest and its main forms

There are a lot of claims about conflict of interest, and the definition of T.Carson points out that conflict of interest arises when an individual is unable to carry out his or her professional responsibilities for the following reasons: 1) there exists (or the individual believes that there exists) actual or potential conflict of interest between the interests of the individual and the interests of the organization to which he or she belongs; 2) the interests of the individual and the interests of the organization to which he or she belongs; 3) the interests of the individual and the interests of the organization to which the individual belongs; 4) the interests of the individual and the interests of the organization to which the individual belongs. (i) when there is (or is perceived by the individual to be) an actual or potential conflict between the interests of the individual and the interests of the organization to which he or she belongs, P; and (ii) when the individual attempts to promote or impede the interests of X (X refers to a subject of interest other than the individual) and there is (or is perceived by the individual to be) an actual or potential conflict between the interests of the individual and the interests of P. In other words, a conflict of interest may arise when an individual's financial or other interests conflict with his or her professional norms or corresponding obligations.

It is worth noting that although the term "conflict of interest" is almost pejorative, the existence of a conflict of interest does not in itself mean that it will necessarily lead to mistakes on the part of the subject of the interest - it simply means that. There are factors that influence people's judgment and behavior. Nevertheless, the existence of a conflict of interest situation does tend to cause unethical behavior. Thus, "conflict of interest" is often used ethically to refer to behavior that undermines and influences professional judgments by individuals who place financial or other interests above their professional norms or obligations. In the context of research ethics, there are at least three types of criteria that can be used to determine whether a conflict of interest exists. First, it is judged on the basis of whether it violates professional codes and norms; second, it is judged on the basis of whether it produces harmful consequences (e.g., influencing scientific judgment, distorting research results, or harming the interests of the individuals or institutions involved) when the consequences of an act are foreseeable. Thirdly, the judgment is based on whether the act itself violates general ethical norms.

In the minds of ordinary people, scientists' exploration of nature is a "value free" process, free from all prejudices. However, the philosophy of science and sociology of science theories of the last thirty years, and the history of science over a longer period of time, have challenged this. Most people today recognize that the presence of interests tends to cloud the judgment of the researcher, whether consciously or unconsciously. Ted Weiss, referring to a 1987 U.S. congressional conflict-of-interest investigation into a drug produced by a company called Genentech, noted that "the greatest concern is that financially funded researchers themselves do not realize that predispositions may influence clinical research and even patient care." This concern is not an overstatement; in the twentieth century, the presence of interest in research was a major factor in the development of the drug. This concern is not excessive, since the 1970s, Hansen, Kuhn and others research has fully demonstrated: observation has a "theory laden" (theory laden), determines the scientist to observe, thinking about the problem of "paradigm" is one of the elements of the "value". The sociology of scientific knowledge, which emerged later on, although it seems to be a bit too extreme, is not entirely without reason in emphasizing the idea of the "interest factor" as a "mediator of political and social factors" in scientific debates and the choice of theories. The history of science also reminds us from time to time that the desire for success and the pursuit of financial gain can often cause "honest and enthusiastic men to be fooled by themselves". As the American Academy of Sciences and several other authoritative organizations **** with the preparation of the book "how to be a scientist" said: "in a certain field of science, a number of different interpretations, may be equally applicable to the existing information, and different interpretations of the different ways to further research. How should a researcher choose? ...... The desire to believe in a new phenomenon sometimes outweighs the need for certainty of well-controlled evidence."

If it is tolerable for scientists to make unintentional mistakes due to the influence of profit factors, it is a serious misdemeanor for researchers to intentionally distort the facts and conceal conflict-of-interest relationships in order to meet the needs of the fame-seeking public. Scientists, like ordinary people, have to play different roles. This requires scientists must learn to correctly view all kinds of interests, especially economic interests, and do not make it threaten, control their scientific judgment. Otherwise, it will not only jeopardize the existence and development of the scientific enterprise, but also may kill their career. The following are some typical situations.

(1) Conflict of interest in the research process That is, in the scientific exploration, due to the researcher's excessive attention to their own interests (here mainly refers to the economic interests) and violation of professional norms, behavioral norms of the phenomenon. A famous example is the case of "eye ointment for dry eyes". In the mid-1980s, a researcher named Scheffer C.G. Tseng (hereinafter referred to as Dr. ST) from Taiwan's National Taiwan University, who was studying in the United States, had a conflict of interest over the use of vitamin A for dry eyes. During his studies in the United States, he became interested in the use of vitamin A to treat dry eyes. In a series of federally-funded studies, he investigated such therapeutic effects of vitamin A in rabbits, and appeared to have some success. Human trials began: first at Hopkins and later at the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary at Harvard. The hospital's "Human Experimentation Committee" agreed, in accordance with relevant federal regulations, to allow Dr. ST to try it on 25 to 50 patients. However, according to later investigations, Dr. ST expanded the scope of the trial without authorization and, in violation of the principle of "informed consent", deceptively tried it on hundreds of patients. From these selective cases, two studies were written and published in favor of vitamin A for dry eyes. Subsequently, Dr. ST and his mentor established a pharmaceutical company called Spectra, which produced a so-called "vitamin A cream for dry eyes". The company issued shares in a public offering, and Dr. ST and his mentor were the largest shareholders. Dr. ST quickly sold all of his shares in the company before the public knew about it, after studies by other researchers who did not own shares in the company showed that the cream was ineffective in treating dry eyes and that long-term use of the cream could cause adverse reactions. The public was so outraged by the revelation that both Dr. ST and the director of his hospital were forced to resign. However, he was exempted from prosecution because his practices did not cause serious harm to patients.

(2) Consulting services and conflict of interest, i.e., scientists with some kind of interest, in the relevant evaluation, consulting services, both as "athletes" and "referees". The famous case is "Alzheimer's disease diagnostic reagent case". Dennis Selkoe of Harvard Medical School, a world-renowned scientist, invented an Alzheimer's disease diagnostic reagent based on his own research results and founded a company called Athens Neuroscience Corporation. By combining science with the pharmaceutical industry, he became an intellectual billionaire. On the other hand, because of the wide variety of reagents available for Alzheimer's disease testing in the U.S. market in recent years, many people have sought expert guidance, and in 1997 Athene Neuroscience provided a $100,000 sponsorship to the nonprofit Alzheimer's Association. Athens Neuroscience provided the Alzheimer's Association, a non-profit organization, with a $100,000 sponsorship to conduct a research study on diagnostic reagents for Alzheimer's disease. "The Alzheimer's Association persuaded the prestigious National Institutes of Health to co-organize the event. At the same time, Selkirk participated in the research as a member of the NIH expert group, and in April 1998, in the leading journal in the field, Neurobiology of Aging, the results of a comparative study of various diagnostic reagents for Alzheimer's disease were published on behalf of a group of invited experts from the National Institutes of Health. Among them, the reagent of the "Athens Neurological Company" was particularly recommended. The article states that "Atheneum Neurological is the sponsor of the study", but nowhere does it mention that Selkirk, who was a member of the panel, is the company's founder and principal shareholder. In this way, the influence of Athens Neurological's interests was concealed by the public's trust in the Alzheimer's Association and the National Institutes of Health, both of which are non-profit organizations. The Alzheimer's Association and the National Institutes of Health are two non-profit organizations. In October of the same year, the Wall Street Journal exposed Selkirk's and others' interest in the recommended product companies. A week later, Harvard Medical School received an anonymous tip claiming that Selkirk had violated the school's rules on handling conflicts of interest. But Selkirk, when investigated by the Harvard Review Board, claimed that the relationship was well known and had been described in his previous papers. It was noted that his 1992 paper on the subject, published in Science, never contained a declaration of interest. A random review of eight of his articles published in 1996 and 1997 did not reveal any mention of the relationship. The "Alzheimer's diagnostic reagent case" demonstrates that the lack of oversight of disclosure of interests can lead to corporate marketing attempts to hoodwink the public in the name of academic grandeur. There are many similar examples. For example, some researchers at the University of Toronto found after a large number of studies: funding from pharmaceutical companies, to a large extent, affects the evaluation of the efficacy of drugs, 96% of the recommended articles are sponsored by the company's researchers. One researcher, Sheldon Krimsky, conducted an in-depth investigation of this issue, analyzing 800 scientific papers in 1997 and noting that 34% of the authors of these articles reported findings that were related to the companies in which they owned stock or acted as consultants. 1998 saw 62,000 scientific papers examined to determine how many scientists had included in their articles a reference to their association with the company in which the article was published. articles to ascertain how many scientists had indicated their interest in the products they recommended in their articles. Only 0.5 percent of the articles included disclosures of interest, he found.

(3) Conflicts of interest in publicizing research results The main conflict is the one that scientists face when they have to choose between abiding by scientific norms and submitting to commercial requirements due to the influence of funding, patent applications, and other interests. As we know, the disclosure and enjoyment of scientific research results is not only a prerequisite for scientists and their work to be tested by their peers, to ensure the quality of their research and to win the recognition of their peers, it is also an important guarantee to avoid unnecessary repetition and to promote the continuous progress of science. R. Merton also regarded "communitarianism" as the basic norm on which the social structure of science is based. A scientist who is unwilling to share the results of his research with qualified colleagues, except for national interests and military needs, is considered by traditional scientists to be an untrustworthy alternative. Today, however, some scientists tend to keep their best ideas to themselves, practicing the so-called "listen more, talk less" principle in order to gain an advantageous position in funding battles or for patenting purposes. What's more worrying is that with the massive involvement of industry funding in academic institutions, the contradiction between disclosure and confidentiality of research results due to the different values of scientific norms and commercial operations is becoming more and more prominent.

Harvard Medical School Blumenthal (David Blumenthal) hosted a series of studies show that 82% of the companies require their sponsorship of academic research results need to be kept secret for at least 2-3 months or even longer for the application of patents. Forty-seven percent of the companies surveyed claimed that they typically require longer periods of confidentiality. In the university survey, Blumenthal surveyed 3,394 life sciences faculties at the top 50 universities that have received the most National Institutes of Health (NIH) grants since 1993, using a mailed questionnaire. Of these, 2,167 respondents answered the questionnaire. In the analysis, 19.8% of the respondents explicitly admitted to having delayed publication for patent applications for more than six months in the past three years (the National Institutes of Health considers an acceptable delay to be 60 days), and 8.1% admitted to having refused to "share the results" with researchers at other universities in the past three years. Multivariate correlation analyses also showed a high correlation between the receipt of funding from industry and the commercialization of scientific research at the university and delays in publication. Another researcher, Rahm, surveyed 1,000 U.S. corporate technology managers and members of the faculties of the top 100 universities with the best R&D programs in the nation, and found that 39% of the sponsoring companies restricted their faculties from sharing results with other universities. 70% of the technology managers and 53% of the faculty members admitted to delays in publication or even failure to publish research results.

In addition to delaying or refusing to publish results for intellectual property considerations such as patenting, sponsored researchers have found that they often face greater resistance to publicizing their results when they produce findings that are unfavorable to the sponsoring company. For example, according to the U.S. "Science" magazine reported, Brown University School of Medicine, an associate professor named Kern (David Kern), in the capacity of consultant funded by "a" textile company to engage in research (later verified by the "Science" magazine for the Microfibres company), and signed with the company to keep "trade secrets". The research was funded by "a certain" textile company (later verified by Science magazine as Microfibres), with which the company had signed an agreement to keep "trade secrets". After more than a decade of research from 1986-1997, he discovered that the textile company's workers were susceptible to a lung disease known as ILD. When Kern was ready to publicize his findings, the company claimed that the research was premature and prohibited him from disclosing his findings at a meeting under the guise of an agreement. Even if the company's name was withheld and it was published in abstract form. This practice caused a strong reaction from the scientific community, and Science published a number of controversial articles on the subject in its "Science and Business" section. Another example is the Wall Street Journal, which published an article in 1996 saying that a study sponsored by a major pharmaceutical company at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) showed that one of the company's best-selling drugs for treating hypothyroidism was far less effective than some other drugs that were much cheaper. The company was so adamant that it would not allow the study to be published that the researchers had to retract the paper, which had already been reviewed. Similar secrecy issues exist in tobacco-sponsored research on the effects of smoking on human health, as well as in global warming research sponsored by coal and oil companies.

Principles of conflict avoidance

Conflicts of interest are most likely to arise when people may profit or lose less as a result of research. In view of this, some researchers have put forward a number of principles for resolving conflicts of interest: ① disclosure of the conflict. ② Deprive the researcher of interests that may affect his scientific judgment. ③Those who have interests should not participate in the evaluation of relevant results and papers, and should not make tendentious remarks. ④Resort to laws, rules and policies that regulate conflicts of interest. (5) Strengthen professional ethics education. (6) Formulate and promulgate clear standards and guidelines for identifying conflicts of interest. Among them, disclosure of interests is considered to be the most effective means to avoid conflicts of interests and their negative effects. Of course, the prerequisite for doing so is that the people involved must recognize the existence of conflict of interest situations.