Statements on conflict of interest of PACE trial TSC

Interested in where the protocols covering definition of Conflict of Interest in medical research are. I may be very dense, but haven’t seen this in all the info on this thread and elsewhere.

Is there an ‘industry’ definition, laid down by professional, ethical or regulatory body?

Are there different definitions applicable to different types of research eg drugs vs procedures vs therapies?

Or does each journal set their own definition?

Or just a convention that can be narrowly or broadly defined as felt appropriate - and who decides whether views or narrow criteria apply?

Ie to what objective standard(s) is/are the PACE Trial authors, investigators and therapists accountable?

 

Thank you, appreciate your swift response.

 

Nobody ever told me what it was throughout my career if there was one.

 

COI is a very, very grey area. When I worked at The Lancet, CoI was considered if you'd received any payment by Big Pharma. But I realised how problematic this is when I worked in research, because often drugs companies will pay for you to attend conferences, will pay for you to eat while at the conference, and will sponsor the talks you want to attend. And they all pile in, so there is no perceived favouritism. And the work I did had nothing to do with the medications anyway, so what did it matter.

And I guess for these guys it's the same. They don't see that they are being influenced as such by taking money or working "for free" for insurance companies and the like. They already hold the views they hold. They are simply advising others. And all of this is already in the public domain anyway, etc, etc. There is no conflict; those companies interests are their interests; so why declare it?

 

NICE have this, which is a fairly recent revision ...

Policy on Conflicts of Interest

https://www.nice.org.uk/media/defau...laring-and-managing-conflicts-of-interest.pdf

 

As far as doctors conducting research, the GMC Good Practice in Research guidance:

https://www.gmc-uk.org/guidance/ethical_guidance/6006.asp

'Avoiding conflicts of interest

26. You must be open and honest in all financial and commercial matters relating to your research and its funding.

27. You must not allow your judgement about a research project to be influenced, or be seen to be influenced, at any stage, by financial, personal, political or other external interests. You must identify any actual or potential conflicts of interest that arise, and declare them as soon as possible to the research ethics committee, other appropriate bodies, and the participants, in line with the policy of your employing or contracting body.'

'Doctors must follow all our guidance: serious or persistent failure to do so will put their registration at risk.'

At time of publication in 2011, Professors Sharpe and White were honorary consultants in liaison psychiatry within different NHS trusts.

Edited for accuracy: Professor White remains on GMC register: Registered with a licence to practise; this doctor is on the Specialist Register. His surname is listed as Denton White.

 

Another case of ‘too big to fail’ ...

 

I remember that round about the time of the PACE trial starting people were complaining that PW (and maybe others) listed COIs in US medical journals which had strict rules but was happy to say no conflicts in UK ones. Can't remember details though, maybe someone else can. It implies that he knew what he was doing just getting away with as much as possible.

 

Interesting.

 

That could be easily determined by a literature search.

 

White said this in an email from Co-Cure (will try and find the date but circa May 2004)

"
3. It is wrong that the psychiatrists carrying out this research are
themselves employed to provide the therapies being studied at the newly
operational ME/CFS centres. It is unethical for people with proven
commercial interests in these studies to be designing and running this
£2.5m trial, given the proven evidence of their commercial interest in the
desired outcome.

The actual position: None of the psychiatrists are employed to provide any
of these therapies. No researcher will make any personal financial gain
from these trials.

....

Dr Peter White
Professor Michael Sharpe
Professor Trudie Chalder
Dr Alison Wearden

"

 

Again it would be interesting to see what levels of funding the authors received for subsequent trials which might not have happened had it not been for PACEs 'success'.........TC certainly seems to have done very nicely in terms of her CBT treatments.

 

I follow the arguments, but I think a problem is that the whole system works like this, doesn't it? Please put me right if I'm wrong but isn't this what the system is?