Media portrayal of conflicts of interest in biomedical research.

• Author: Koper, Megan
• Position: Canada

Due to the growing industry support of biomedical research, studies are increasingly scrutinized because of conflicts of interest of investigators and concerns about inaccurate reporting of study results by the popular media.

The Association of American Medical Colleges has defined conflict of interest in science as "situations in which financial or other personal considerations may compromise, or have the appearance of compromising, an investigator's professional judgment in conducting or reporting research." (1)

For the purpose of our study, conflict of interest referred to both "research conflicts", the primary example of which is industry funding of research, and "researcher conflicts" which occur when the researchers themselves have financial ties to industry, and in some cases could potentially benefit from a particular study outcome. Researchers who are employed by or invest in the manufacturer of a study compound or its competitors would fall into this category.

This issue is important in a media context as the general public gets much of its information about science and technology from the popular media. For this reason, media reporting has the capacity to shape public perceptions of safety and efficacy of a particular treatment, thereby influencing patterns of use (2).

Our study compared newspaper coverage of biomedical research to the reporting of...