Professional medical societies: do we have any conflict of interest with industry?
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EDITORIAL
Professional medical societies: do we have any conflict of interest with industry? Massimo Antonelli1* and Craig M. Coopersmith2 © 2018 Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature and ESICM
Conflicts of interest (COIs) have always occurred in scientific research and medical education. During the 1980s, the relationships between industry and academia intensified because of innovation and growth in biotechnology, pharmaceuticals and therapy. Industry currently funds nearly 60% of all biomedical research performed in the USA with pharmaceutical companies providing 30%, biotechnology firms another 20% and medical device companies about 10%. In 2004, these investments accounted for more than 50% of the clinical research being conducted in the USA [1]. Recently, there have been concerns about industry supporting an even larger component of research funding during times of contraction of federal government spending on research [2]. While recent increases in funding from the National Institutes of Health has mitigated these concerns, industry continues to fund the majority of nonbasic science. Defining COI policies that satisfy multiple stakeholders remains challenging. When medical societies collaborate with companies to promote education or to develop products that improve health, in principle there is a benefit, but there are concerns that wide-ranging financial relationships to industry may inappropriately influence professional judgments. There are multiple potential domains in which COIs could potentially exist in interactions with industry. Medical societies have partnered with industry to fund research fellowships, and COI concerns have called these
*Correspondence: [email protected]; massimo.antonelli@ policlinicogemelli.it 1 Department of Intensive Care Medicine, Anesthesiology and Emergency Medicine, Fondazione Policlicnico Universitario A. Gemelli IRCCSUniversità Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Largo Agostino Gemelli 8, 00168 Rome, Italy Full author information is available at the end of the article
into serious question, similar to universities acquiring partial industry funding for new academic positions [3, 4]. In addition, some databases sponsored by medical societies that are freely accessible to its membership are funded in part or completely by industry support [5]. Industry also supports medical journals through advertisements, purchase of articles and occasionally by supporting supplemental issues. This can be especially complicated for supplements funded by a single company and dealing with one drug [6]. Another major task of medical societies is the development of guidelines, where the possibility for COI is both direct and indirect. Guidelines can be directly supported by industry wherein a financial gift is given specifically to support their development, albeit without editorial control or representation on the guideline writing committee. Alternatively, guidelines may have indirect support from industry by virtue of the fact that panel members have benefited from re
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