TY - JOUR
T1 - Who is buying bioethics research?
AU - Sharp, Richard R.
AU - Scott, Angela L.
AU - Landy, David C.
AU - Kicklighter, Laura A.
N1 - Funding Information:
Agency for Healthcare Research & Quality (U.S.A.) Australian Research Council (Australia) Danish Research Council (Denmark) Department of Vetera ns’ Affairs (U.S.A.) Health Resources & Services Administration (U.S.A.) Ministry of Education, Science, Sports & Culture (Japan) National Health Service (UK) National Institutes of Health (U.S.A.) National Science Foundation (U.S.A.) Social Science & Humanities Research Council (Canada)
Funding Information:
Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Charles E. Culpeper Foundation Greenwall Foundation Joyce & Sidney Gamburg Neonatal Research Fund Mayday Fund Open Society Institute Pew Charitable Trust Retirement Research Foundation Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Wellcome Trust
Funding Information:
Received 7 September 2007; accepted 21 March 2008. Acknowledgements: Administrative support for this project was provided by the Center for Medical Ethics and Health Policy at Baylor College of Medicine. Although the research reported was not supported directly by any extramural grants or contracts, during the time this work was completed the investigators received salary support from grants by the National Human Genome Research Institute and National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. The authors thank Laurence MaCullough, Jeremy Sugarmȧn, and Baruch Brody for their helpful comments on an earlier draft. Address correspondence to Richard R. Sharp, Director, Bioethics Research, Cleveland Clinic, 9500 Euclid Ave., Room JJ-60, Cleveland, OH 44195. E-mail: sharpr3@ccf.org
PY - 2008/8
Y1 - 2008/8
N2 - Growing ties to private industry have prompted many to question the impartiality of academic bioethicists who receive financial support from for-profit corporations in exchange for ethics-related services and research. To the extent that corporate sponsors may view bioethics as little more than a way to strengthen public relations or avoid potential controversy, close ties to industry may pose serious threats to professional independence. New sources of support from private industry may also divert bioethicists from pursuing topics of greater social importance, such as the needs of medically underserved communities. To inform ongoing debates about the financing of bioethics and its transparency to those concerned about potential sources of bias, we examined funding disclosures appearing in original research reports in major bioethics journals. Reviewing research published over a 15-year period, we found little evidence that for-profit corporations are influencing bioethics research directly. Instead, we found evidence that a great number of organizations, both public and private, support bioethics research. These findings suggest that worries about the cooption of bioethics research by a few interested stakeholders are greatly overstated and undersupported by available data.
AB - Growing ties to private industry have prompted many to question the impartiality of academic bioethicists who receive financial support from for-profit corporations in exchange for ethics-related services and research. To the extent that corporate sponsors may view bioethics as little more than a way to strengthen public relations or avoid potential controversy, close ties to industry may pose serious threats to professional independence. New sources of support from private industry may also divert bioethicists from pursuing topics of greater social importance, such as the needs of medically underserved communities. To inform ongoing debates about the financing of bioethics and its transparency to those concerned about potential sources of bias, we examined funding disclosures appearing in original research reports in major bioethics journals. Reviewing research published over a 15-year period, we found little evidence that for-profit corporations are influencing bioethics research directly. Instead, we found evidence that a great number of organizations, both public and private, support bioethics research. These findings suggest that worries about the cooption of bioethics research by a few interested stakeholders are greatly overstated and undersupported by available data.
KW - Bioethics
KW - Conflict of interest
KW - Pharmaceutical industry
KW - Research ethics
KW - Social science research
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=52149104646&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=52149104646&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1080/15265160802317982
DO - 10.1080/15265160802317982
M3 - Review article
C2 - 18802867
AN - SCOPUS:52149104646
SN - 1526-5161
VL - 8
SP - 54
EP - 58
JO - American Journal of Bioethics
JF - American Journal of Bioethics
IS - 8
ER -