Money is the greatest conflict of all

Conflict of interest in science is a complex concept, and nobody who publishes research can be entirely free of it. Money is by far the greatest of all such conflicts, and it seems to have been a key component in the Wakefield saga.1 It has been a major problem with the reporting of industry associated research for decades.

Recently, institutions and funding bodies have started asking scientists whether their research findings contain any intellectual property, with the view of forming a “spin-off” company. Collaborations between academic groups cannot be undertaken without the lawyers who represent institutions arguing over the sharing of intellectual property. As a result, the unpleasant smell of money begins to taint almost every realm of biomedical research—scientists cannot help their judgment being clouded by the hint of profit.

Institutions with the mission of teaching, conducting research, or funding research should stop behaving like businesses with the mission of making money. Let scientists do the research and publish the results in the public domain. Let businesses pick up the interesting ideas and turn them into money. Let the government tax the profit of those businesses and plough it back into scientific institutions. Scientists can then work free from a pernicious and all pervasive conflict of interest as well as the tyranny of corporate lawyers. Scientists whose primary goal is to get rich can work in industry.