Scientific Publishing and the Marketisation of Biomedical Knowledge: A Sociology of Conflict of Interest Policies

• In Event: Reproducibility and Other Problems: Practical and Institutional Responses to Contemporary Crises in Science - I

Abstract

The editorial policies of scientific journals play a key role in the definition of what can or cannot be considered as legitimate (or problematic) scientific practices, and their evolution reflects normative tensions and credibility issues in science. In the mid-1980s, several medical journals started to implement “conflict of interest” policies requiring their authors to disclose any commercial associations that could potentially affect the opinions or results published. These policies, promoted as a response to the growing role of business arrangements in medical research, were subject to heated debate, but they were progressively adopted by all major medical journals. However, since the 2000s, new evidence on the widespread influence of economic interests on medical research, and on the resulting bias on published findings, has given rise to even stronger controversies, and to new editorial attempts to insure/restore the credibility of scientific publications.

Based on a content analysis of the articles addressing the question of conflict of interest in four major medical journals since the 1980s, but also on a series of interviews conducted with the main (current and former) editors of these journals, my presentation will retrace the development of these conflict of interest policies and the international cooperation that medical journals have developed around this issue. It will also analyze journals’ long-lasting difficulties in enforcing these policies and question the capacity of these transparency mechanisms to respond to the transformation of the political economy of biomedicine.

Author

• Boris Hauray, Inserm