Conflicts of interest in medical science: peer usage, peer review and 'CoI consultancy'

Medical Hypotheses
Bruce G Charlton

Abstract

In recent years, the perception has grown that conflicts of interest are having a detrimental effect on medical science as it influences health policy and clinical practice, leading medical journals to enforce self-declaration of potential biases in the attempt to counteract or compensate for the problem. Conflict of interest (CoI) declarations have traditionally been considered inappropriate in pure science since its evaluation systems themselves constitute a mechanism for eliminating the effect of individual biases. Pure science is primarily evaluated by 'peer usage', in which scientific information is 'replicated' by being incorporated in the work of other scientists, and tested by further observation of the natural world. Over the long-term, the process works because significant biases impair the quality of science, and bad science tends to be neglected or refuted. However, scientific evaluation operates slowly over years and decades, and only a small proportion of published work is ever actually evaluated. But most of modern medical science no longer conforms to the model of pure science, and may instead be conceptualized as a system of 'applied' science having different aims and evaluation processes. The aim of applied me...Continue Reading

Citations

Aug 27, 2005·PLoS Medicine·Bruce G Charlton, Peter Andras
Jun 3, 2009·Medical Hypotheses·Jafar Kolahi, Mohamadreza Abrishami
Dec 30, 2008·Medical Hypotheses·Bruce G Charlton
Dec 3, 2008·International Journal of Occupational and Environmental Health·James Craner
Oct 12, 2012·Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics·Georg SteinhauserNicole Zwiren

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