A soda company sponsoring nutrition research. An oil conglomerate helping fund a climate-related research meeting. Does the public care who's paying for science?
In a word, yes. When industry funds science, credibility suffers. And this does not bode well for the types of public-private research partnerships that appear to be becoming more prevalent as government funding for research and development lags.
The recurring topic of conflict of interest has made headlines in recent weeks. The National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine has revised its conflict of interest guidelines following questions about whether members of a recent expert panel on GMOs had industry ties or other financial conflicts that were not disclosed in the panel's final report.
Our own recent research speaks to how hard it may be for the public to see research as useful when produced with an industry partner, even when that company is just one of several collaborators.
The study found that participants distrusted any research coming from companies, even when produced by a diverse array of companies or in partnership with the government or non-corporate parties. Is this a real threat to science, as government funding of research declines?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 09 2017, @04:38AM (2 children)
Examples? Or is just, like, your opinion, man.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 09 2017, @05:10AM (1 child)
Im not going to share the personal details, but pick any recent biomedical journal article.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 09 2017, @01:34PM
This AC is tempted to believe you especially if you're talking about dietary research or research on "new drugs." The problems with big pharma "researching" "new drugs" is starting to get well documented. In dietary research I routinely see P-hacking and terrible experimental design which is further compounded by "one weird trick" clickbait journalism.
Also, don't eat green jelly beans. Medical research shows that they cause acne [xkcd.com].