Extracts - Science and the Corporate Agenda

Biotech related extracts from the recent in-depth report about the power of commercial interests within science and technology: Science and the Corporate Agenda, by Stuart Parkinson and Chris Langley of Scientists for Global Responsibility. The report considers how the commercialisation of science "brings with it a wide range of detrimental effects, including bias, conflicts of interest, a narrowing of the research agenda, and misrepresentation of research results. It examines these effects across five sectors: pharmaceuticals; tobacco; military/defence; oil and gas; and biotechnology." For reasons of space and to assist ease of reading, GMWatch has removed the extensive references available in the original report from the extracts below.

EXAMPLE EXTRACTS: The issue of the failure to declare potential conflicts of interest is illustrated by a study of 79 papers in molecular biology (including areas in biotechnology) submitted to the journal Nature in a six-month period in 2005. This study shows that, in two-thirds of the papers in which authors had patent applications or company affiliations which might be considered to present competing financial interests, the authors did not disclose them. Only four papers in the study actually declared that some of the authors had competing financial interests.