Is the conflict of interest unacceptable when drug companies conduct trials on their own drugs? No

I cannot for one moment imagine why anyone would think that a system
involving self assessment by vendors could work.

Regardless of the field involved, humans simply are not equipped to
undertake impartial assessments of their own income-earning products. They
never have been, and they are becoming less and less so equipped, as our
moral standards drift downwards and rules, bureaucracy and "health and
safety" take the place of common sense and self reliance.

Wake up and look around you. We simply cannot be trusted to run a
system either impartially, or even fairly any more. My local NHS Trust has
been found guilty of falsifying statistics. So has my local MP. And my
bank. And my local climatologist :-) And so forth.

Competing interests:
None declared