Conflicts of Interest

The term “conflict of interest in research” refers to situations in which financial or other
personal considerations may compromise, or have the appearance of compromising a researcher's
professional judgment in conducting or reporting research. Conflicts of Interests can be easily diagnosed
by measuring/detecting the presence of research misconducts.Professionals/researchers have a conflict
of interest when their interests/commitments:

o Compromise their judgments,

o Compromise their research reports,
o Compromise their communications to research subjects,
participants, patients, or clients (sponsors, etc.)

Common types of Conflict of Interest

 Ethical conflict of interest – It is a situation in which an individual, who is in a position of trust,

has a competing professional/personal interest. Such competing interests can make it difficult
to fulfill his or her duties impartially. A conflict of interest exists even if no unethical or improper
act results.
 Financial Conflict of Interest – When significant financial Interests directly affect, or could
appear to affect, the professional judgment of a researcher when designing, conducting, or
reporting research.

Role of Investigator in Conflicts of Interest

Investigator’s conflict of interest can lead to scientific/research misconduct.

Research misconduct/ Fraud

As per the FDA, deliberate or repeated noncompliance with the protocol and GCP can be
considered fraud, but is secondary to falsification of data. Research misconduct can also be called
fraudulent.

Research misconduct, namely, fabrication, falsification, and plagiarism, involve research choices made
by a scientist or engineer where the act of wrongdoing is often clear and in which there is little ethical
ambiguity. Research misconduct means fabrication, falsification, or plagiarism in proposing, performing,
or reviewing research, or in reporting research results.

a. Fabrication is making up data or results and recording or reporting them.

b. Falsification is manipulating research materials, equipment, or processes, or changing or
omitting data or results such that the research is not accurately represented in the research
record.
c. Plagiarism is the appropriation of another person's ideas, processes, results, or words without
giving appropriate credit.
d. Research misconduct does not include honest error or differences of opinion.

Motivation that leads to conflict of Interest/Research misconduct

 Career pressure
o "publish or perish"
 Believing that one "knows the right answer"
 o intend to introduce a fact that they believe is true, without actually performing the
experiments required.
 The ability to get away with it
 Consequences:
o vary based on the severity of the fraud, the level of notice it receives, and how long it
goes undetected.
o Even a case of plagiarism can cause damage through resources being misdirected to
others who may be less capable of using them effectively and certainly are less
deserving of them.
 Hiding the negative effects of the sponsor’s product after being paid funds by the sponsor to
hide it (financial conflict of Interest).
 Suppressing/not publishing the negative data of sponsor’s product.

Role of a Sponsor in causing Research misconduct

 Granting funds to investigators unethically in order to hide the negativity of the drug. For
example, the sponsor pays the investigator $50,000 to exhibit only the positive effects of the
sponsor’s drug/product.
 Causing suppression/non-publication – Not allowing investigator to publish the data.
o Studies may be suppressed or remain unpublished because the findings are perceived to
undermine the commercial, political or other interests of the sponsoring agent.
o Or, the suppression of data might be because of lack of the support of ideological goals
of the sponsor/researcher/sponsor-researcher.
 Undisclosed funding to the investigator implies that the sponsor has a conflict of interest.

Role of Author in causing Research misconduct

 All authors, including coauthors, are expected to have made reasonable attempts to check
findings submitted to academic journals for publication. Not rechecking the data may cause
publication of data that includes a lot of errors.
 Simultaneous submission of scientific findings to more than one journal or duplicate publication
of findings is usually regarded as misconduct, under what is known as the Ingelfinger rule.
 Guest authorships (are commonly regarded as forms of research misconduct).
 Authors are expected to keep all study data for later examination even after publication but
when their data is false, they tend to destroy it soon after publication.