Conference in Cork on Conflicts of Interest

Jim Murray | Open Medicine EU | August 9, 2011

My friends at Health Action International have asked me to moderate a session at their conference on conflicts of interest in medicine on 24th September in Cork (“Liege” in French?) so, apart from meeting interesting people and hearing interesting things, I have an excuse (not that I need one) to go to my own country....

...Conflict of interest in the making of science is a huge and very complex issue, and especially so in the science of medicines, because of the vast amounts of money in the field. The worst kind of conflicts are hidden or undisclosed conflicts. Undisclosed conflicts may be perfectly innocent but too often they can facilitate bias and sometimes even outright corruption....