Conflicts of Interest

How do you ensure that the FDA advisory panels crucial to the drug approval process have the right members? ACSH advisor Dr. David Shlaes, the former head of infectious disease research at Wyeth, addresses these issues especially as they relate to antibiotic panels in his recent thought-provoking entry entitled Conflict of Interest vs. Competent Advice.
The promotion of drugs to doctors has been a hot button issue for quite some time. But now, GlaxoSmithKline CEO Andrew Witty may be leading the pharmaceutical industry in a very different direction.
FROM THE EXECUTIVE SUMMARY For approximately a century, industry has been a powerful motivating force in the creation of new technology and the underwriting of scientific research. Yet the last two decades have seen the development of a sweeping conflicts of interest movement aimed squarely at curtailing academic/industry biomedical research collaborations and restricting membership on government scientific advisory boards to researchers associated within dustry.