FEATURE
the findings were similar: Industry-sponsored
studies were 34 percent more likely to report
favorable conclusions than non–industry-
sponsored papers. 7
Ms. Brownlee conceded that industry
funding for research is inevitable and suggested
a variety of approaches to manage the ensuing
conflict. For one, she said, she’d like to see more
institutions taking proactive roles in handling
research contracts and creating greater
separation between researchers and potential
industry influence.
“Institutions can mitigate against the influ-
ence of who is paying for the trial,” she explained.
“They can, for example, require that the design
of the study must be investigator-controlled,
the data have to be investigator-controlled and
available to other investigators, and, of course,
the writing should not be done by a ghostwriter.”
To help maintain investigator independence, she
added, institutions also can “protect researchers
who come up with the wrong answers and make
sure they are allowed to publish these results.”
Others, however, argue that the movement
toward full transparency – or complete separa-
tion between industry and academia – has gone
too far. Thomas P. Stossel, MD, a hematologist
from Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston,
Massachusetts, believes the COI disclosure
campaign has overstepped its bounds and is
now stifling innovation and wasting resources
on bureaucracies that exist solely to manage
research relationships.
Continued on page 76