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A Politics of Objectivity: Biomedicine’s Attempts to Grapple with “non-financial” Conflicts of Interest

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Abstract

Increasingly, policymakers within biomedicine argue that “non-financial” interests should be given equal scrutiny to individuals’ financial relationships with industry. Problematized as “non-financial conflicts of interest,” interests, ranging from intellectual commitments to personal beliefs, are managed through disclosure, restrictions on participation, and recusal where necessary. “Non-financial” interests, though vaguely and variably defined, are characterized as important influences on judgment and thus, are considered risks to scientific objectivity. This article explores the ways that “non-financial interests” have been constructed as an ethical problem and the implications for research integrity. I conducted an interpretive, qualitative study, which triangulated two data sources: documents (including published accounts of identifying and managing “non-financial” interests and conflict of interest policies) and in-depth interviews with 16 leaders within evidence-based medicine, responsible for contributing to, directing, or overseeing conflict of interest policy development and implementation. This article outlines how evolutions in the definition of conflict of interest have opened the door to include myriad “non-financial” interests, resulting in the generalisation of a statistical concept—risk of bias—to social contexts. Consequently, biases appear equally pervasive among participants while in reality, a politics of objectivity is at play, with allegations of conflict of interest used as a means to undermine others’ credibility, or even participation. Iterations of the concept of conflict of interest within biomedicine have thus consistently failed to articulate or address questions of accountability including whose interests are able to dominate or distort evidence-led processes and why. Consequently, current policy solutions meant to mitigate bias may instead serve exclusionary purposes under the guise of impartiality while remaining vulnerable to interference from powerful stakeholders.

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The transcripts are not available per the ethics approval and participants’ consent.

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Funding

This work was supported through a Postdoctoral Fellowship from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and a Connaught New Researcher Award from the University of Toronto.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Lawrence S. Bloomberg Faculty of Nursing, University of Toronto, Suite 130, 155 College St, Toronto, ON, M5T1P8, Canada

    Quinn Grundy

  2. Faculty of Health and Medicine, School of Pharmacy, Charles Perkins Centre, The University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia

    Quinn Grundy

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Correspondence to Quinn Grundy.

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This research was approved by The University of Sydney and University of Toronto Health Research Ethics Boards.

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Grundy, Q. A Politics of Objectivity: Biomedicine’s Attempts to Grapple with “non-financial” Conflicts of Interest. Sci Eng Ethics 27, 37 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11948-021-00315-8

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