Editorial: Surrogacy of Financial Conflicts of Interest

Editorial

See accompanying article doi: 10.1200/JCO.2012.46.6375

"Conflict of interest occurs when meeting professional responsibilities
is compromised by opportunities for secondary personal
gain.1,2 Although benefits that comprise these gains may include prestige, power, or status,1,2 since the 1980s, biomedical literature has
more often emphasized that medical researchers and educators have
opportunities for financial gains because of their interactions with the
private sector.3 These resulting risks for financial conflicts of interest
could become apparent through bias in the conduct or reporting of
research or in the provision of educational material. Advances in
diagnostics and therapeutics resulting from new molecular understandings of disease processes have likely created greater opportunities for interaction and collaboration between the pharmaceutical and biotechnology sectors and the academic and health care provider..........
communities, and have probably contributed to the need for medical
journals,4,5 academic institutions,6,7 and professional societies8,9 to
each develop policies that require researchers and other professionals
to disclose their relationships with commercial entities. These disclosures allow users of related research or educational material to be
aware of potential risks of bias. The American Society of Clinical
Oncology (ASCO) has an explicit disclosure policy in association with
material to be reported at the annual ASCO meeting.8................