The deep reach of the pharmaceutical industry into academic and clinical medicine sets up ample opportunity for conflicts of interest on the part of biomedical researchers. To minimize the risks that such conflicts could introduce bias into the scientific literature, most publications impose reporting regulations that make transparent any financial stake that an individual researcher may have in the subject of his or her publications. Similarly, most institutions regulate the nature and scope of such financial agreements.
However, there appears to be significantly less oversight when it comes to an individual researcher’s ability sign away freedom of inquiry and publication. In a commentary in this week’s Chronicle of Higher Education, Harvard School of Public Health professor Marc Lipsitch points out that few universities have explicit regulations to prohibit researchers from signing consultation agreements that severely curtail their freedom to express their opinions or choose the direction of their research. And in the absence of such regulations, Big Pharma are starting to ask for precisely these types of contractual restrictions. Lipsitch reports his own experience: (more…)