Category: Conflicts of Interest

Reminder – Symposium on Institutional Financial Conflicts of Interest in Research Universities

The Petrie-Flom Center Staff Leave a comment
Friday, November 2, 2012
8:30am – 6:30pm (reception to follow)
Milstein Conference Rooms, 2nd Floor
Wasserstein Hall
1585 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA

Just a reminder that next week the Petrie-Flom Center and the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics will be co-sponsoring a day-long symposium organized by Dr. David Korn on institutional financial conflicts of interest in research universities. The speaker line-up is incredible, including Derek Bok and Zeke Emanuel, among other experts from academia and government.

For more information, and to register (attendance is free), check out the symposium webpage.  We hope to see you there!

Reproductive Politics

Michele Goodwin Leave a comment

By Michele Goodwin

In recent months, women’s reproduction has been in the spotlight.  A few weeks ago, the Republican Party adopted an anti-abortion platform calling for a constitutional amendment outlawing abortion and making no exception for victims in cases of incest, rape, or to save the woman’s life.  Ironically, some of the very same party leaders responsible for drafting the amendment issued demands for the Missouri Congressman, Todd Akin, to resign or step aside in a hotly contested Senate race after he made controversial claims that “legitimate” rapes rarely result in pregnancies.

As the gender war plays out in high profile ways, we should be aware that abortion politics is not the only area in which women’s reproductive rights are closely scrutinized and under threat of political attack.  Relatively little attention has focused on the pernicious on-the-ground forms of criminal policing targeted at pregnant women across America.

Since the late 1980s, state legislatures have enacted criminal feticide laws that now ensnare women for a broad range of activities, including falling down steps, suffering drug addiction, refusing cesarean sections, or attempting suicide. For example, in 2010 Utah Governor Gary Herbert signed into law the “Criminal Homicide and Abortion Revisions Act,” which specifically applies to miscarriages and other fetal harms that result from “knowing acts” committed by women.  A prior version of the bill drafted by state legislator Carl Wimmer authorized life imprisonment for pregnant women who engage in reckless behavior during pregnancy that could result in miscarriage and stillbirth.  Arkansas, Florida, Minnesota, and some other states define child abuse as intentional or neglectful harm to the fetus.

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When Do Doctors Discount Clinical Trial Results?

Jonathan Darrow Leave a comment

by Jonathan J. Darrow

A research study reported today in the New England Journal of Medicine found that physicians are able to discriminate between clinical trials with high levels of rigor versus those with low levels of rigor, as well as between clinical trials that are funded by industry and those that are funded by the government.

The randomized study analyzed the responses of 269 physicians who were presented with hypothetical abstracts of clinical trial findings for three hypothetical drugs.  Abstracts were deliberately crafted to reflect three levels of clinical trial rigor (low, medium, and high), and three types of funding disclosure (no disclosure, National Institutes of Health funding, and pharmaceutical industry funding), yielding 27 abstract types.

The major finding of the study was that physicians are less willing “to believe and act on trial findings, independent of the trial’s quality,” if the trial is funded by industry.  That industry funding led to a decrease in perceived credibility, even for large and well-designed trials, concerned the study authors, who felt that “[t]he methodologic rigor of a trial, not its funding disclosure, should be a primary determinant of its credibility.”

The full article citation is: Aaron S. Kesselheim et al., A Randomized Study of How Physicians Interpret Research Funding Disclosures, 367(12) New Eng. J. Med. 1119 (Sept. 20, 2012). Available here.

[Editorial Note: And within the et al. is Chris Robertson, a former Petrie-Flom Academic Fellow, current prof at University of Arizona, and future guest blogger here at Bill of Health!]

Conference Announcement: Institutional Financial Conflicts of Interest in Research Universities

Holly Fernandez Lynch Leave a comment

On November 2 at Harvard Law School, the Petrie-Flom Center and the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics will be co-sponsoring a day-long symposium organized by Dr. David Korn on institutional financial conflicts of interest in research universities. The speaker line-up is incredible, including Francis Collins, Derek Bok, and Zeke Emanuel, among other experts from academia and government.

For more information, and to register (attendance is free), check out the symposium webpage.  We hope to see you there!