BMJ  2006;333:1212-1213 (9 December), doi:10.1136/bmj.333.7580.1212-c

Practice

Short cuts

US institutional review boards have undisclosed ties with industry

When researchers asked 893 members of review boards of US academic institutions about their financial ties to the drugs industry, 574 replied and 36% of those said they had at least one. Seventy eight said their duties on the review board had clashed with their industry links in the past year. When a competing interest came up, only about half of the respondents (58% of 78) said they always disclosed it to a review board official. Overall, nearly 7% of respondents had discussed or voted on protocols from companies they had links with, or their competitors, in clear breech of federal regulations.

So relationships with industry are common among the guardians of research ethics in the US, and usually involve funding for research or expenses for meetings and conferences. A potentially bigger problem is that the boards in this survey had no consistent way of dealing with them. A third of respondents didn't know how to disclose payments from drug companies, and only half said their review board used a formal working definition of competing interest.

Since links with industry are probably here to stay, review boards must get smarter at managing them, writes a linked editorial (pp 2365-7). Full disclosure coupled with transparent, consistent, and enforceable policies is the only way to protect research subjects.

References

N Engl J Med 2006;355:2321-9[Abstract/Full Text]

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