Anything to declare? Border stories on the conflict of interest

medical journals, pointed an accusing finger at the increasing pressures coming from the pharmaceutical industry. During past decades, a key role in trial design and conduct was played by independent clinical investigators working in academic medical centres. They were also able to vouchsafe the quality of their research, which might not, however, be the case in the future.1 The editorial also reveals that new treatments are proving to be less beneficial, in spite of increasingly sophisticated and expensive trials. Today, marketing a new drug in the US costs an average $500 million.2 In order to reduce costs, the pharmaceutical industry prefers investing in private research groups, the so-called CRO’s (Contract Research Organizations), who received, in 2001, 60 percent of all US research grants. Companies may thus decide upon the terms and conditions of recruitment, and investigators may have little say in the design of trials and may not have access to raw data or data interpretation. In addition, more and more frequently companies impose binding contract conditions which forbid researchers to publish trial results when these are unfavourable to the sponsor. There are well documented cases.3 1 Op.cit. (1