Conflicts of interest, smoke and mirrors

Commercial funding of research studies may potentially influence or bias the findings and interpretation of results. An editorial on conflicts of interest suggested that funding from non-commercial sources, such as government agencies, may also represent a conflict of interest, and uses the Women's Health Initiative (WHI) as an example of how this might be. Two WHI investigators responded by claiming that the arguments put forward in the editorial were largely 'red herrings' and were aimed at disparaging the WHI results. But there is evidence of bias in the presentation and interpretation of WHI findings by some investigators which may be due to conflicts of interest. It is probably wise to declare all sources of external research funding, including industries, governments and charities, as conflicts of interest so that reviewers of such research studies are alerted to give them full scrutiny for evidence of external influences.