Conflict of Interest Rampant Among Review Monitors

Doctors who monitor drug tests often have financial ties to the pharmaceutical industry—but most of them don’t think this poses a conflict of interest, according to a study led by a Harvard Medical School professor.

According to the study, over one-third of the members on Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)—the committees charged with monitoring patient studies at hospitals and research facilities—say they have at least one financial relationship with the pharmaceutical industry. And 42 percent said they didn’t always disclose conflicts of interest.

More significantly, 15 percent of the respondents said that “another member had actually misrepresented a study as a result of their relationship with industry,” Assistant Professor of Medicine Eric G. Campbell, the lead researcher, said.

“A lot of things influence the way people behave, and we can’t nail it down to saying that a certain relationship caused a certain behavior,” Campbell said. “But researchers’ relationships with industry often influence their performance.”

Campbell said he and his co-authors surveyed under 900 IRB members at 100 academic institutions and research facilities, soliciting anonymous responses.

But the Harvard Medical School Committee on Human Studies, Harvard’s own IRB, has established safeguards to prevent such conflicts.

The director of the Office for Research Subject Protection, Carolyn M. Connelly, explained by e-mail that the IRB chair at Harvard always asks members with “real or perceived” conflicts to excuse themselves during voting procedures.

Connelly said she was surprised by the reported conflicts of interest and added that hiding a conflict is actually more troubling than the conflict itself.

“Based on my experience here, I would not have expected that many committee members not to have disclosed conflicts with industry,” she wrote.

“We have set up our policy and practice so that people involved in making these decisions don’t have ties to the companies related to the research. Certainly, failure to disclose such conflicts is worrisome.”

The study was published in this week’s issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.