Even the unassuming visitor will not take long to notice a thinly-veiled agenda behind the website for the UV Foundation — its pages exclusively tout the benefits of tanning and tanning beds. Still, this clear conflict of interest didn’t stop Boston University professor Michael Holick from using a UV Foundation grant to fund his research on the benefits of moderate sunlight exposure before publishing his findings in one of medicine’s most respected journals. As distressingly common as this trend has become, there is still no excuse for such blatant conflicts of interest.
Unfortunately, the practice of corporations funding scientific research is on the rise. Even at BU, this is not the first case in which a university researcher was found with questionable funding sources. Last month, the Daily Free Press reported that BU’s Center for Cancer Research has accepted millions in grants from Philip Morris USA.
Though using corporate research funding has become acceptable practice at almost every research institution from BU to Harvard University, these intellectual leaders should still discourage faculty members from accepting funding from such sources. The New England Journal of Medicine should also more thoroughly examine how the research it publishes is funded and disclose any potential conflicts of interest in an explicit manner. No matter how hard it gets to win federal funding, researchers should also regulate themselves against the corrupting influence of special-interest organizations.
The troubling relationship between research institutions and corporations has blurred the line between legitimate science and research with an agenda. Any institution involved in such research has something to lose in the long run. As common as this practice may be, it has the potential to explode into a national scandal from which no institution will be immune.
Even if none of these institutions is willing or able to halt the cycle, the one that should do the most to prevent corporate meddling is BU. For the second time in a month, the university’s name has been associated with negative press about corporate-funded research. If BU wants to maintain its reputation as one of the leading medical research universities in America, it would do well to cut off questionable corporate funding to its faculty research. Universities and medical journals cannot maintain their integrity as authoritative sources for unbiased research in the face of such prejudicial practices.
