Conflict-of-Interest Rules: The Cure is Worse than the Disease
This is Richard A. Epstein in a Manhattan Institute report:
A mounting wariness toward collaborations between employees of research institutions and public agencies and those working for pharmaceutical companies and the like, as expressed in increasingly broad conflict-of-interest rules and prohibitions, threatens to disrupt what has been a wide-ranging and productive exchange of knowledge and information. Populist in its objection to scientists’ enrichment and puritanical in its belief in money’s certain corruptive powers, this new regulatory philosophy is likely to degrade the quality of research and delay the provision of lifesaving medicines and treatments.
It’s a long paper and I don’t have time to read it at the moment, but I suspect that Epstein is right.
The bottom line point is almost sure right. Without collaboration, we are going to get far few drug breakthroughs.
Question: How do you distinguish between the scientist who is collaborating and the one who is just doing th drug company;s bidding?
Joe. The answer is transparency. You disclose financial relationships upfront.
So as long as everything is transparent, anything goes?
The point is that the rules have become so restrictive that collaboration is effectively being outlawed.