Does industry funding sway opinion?

The answer to this question might seem obvious, and when it comes to laboratory research the degree of required disclosure is relatively transparent, but some local scientists have been looking at the way industry funding for patient advocacy groups is shaping opinion — and the results are insidious.

Bond University’s Dr Ray Moynihan and Professor Lisa Bero from the University of Sydney’s Charles Perkins Centre believe that misleading claims and conflicts of interest are rife among industry-sponsored patient advocacy groups. In their commentary published in JAMA Internal Medicine, they argue that these groups should be subject to the same level of scrutiny as institutional bodies in the pharmaceutical and medical fields.

Professor Bero stated, “As more research is conducted into patient groups and their influence in medicine, the question remains — are they engaging in potentially deceptive practices by suggesting solutions which better serve the interests of their corporate sponsors, rather than what’s best for patients?”

While some pharmaceutical companies voluntarily announce their financial support for certain associations, there are no national requirements for patient advocacy groups to disclose the sources of their funding.

“The very way we think about disease is being subtly distorted because many of the ostensibly independent players, including patient advocacy groups, are largely singing tunes acceptable to companies seeking to maximise markets for drugs and devices,” Professor Bero said.

Professor Bero and Dr Moynihan point to research done by their US colleagues, which indicates a worrying trend in the cosy relationship that exists between big pharma and various patient advocacy groups. For example, Dr Susannah Rose of the Cleveland Clinic surveyed 439 patient organisations, of which two-thirds receive some degree of industry funding — in some cases as much as $1 million annually.

“While there is ample evidence across medicine more generally showing that funding has the potential to bias research, education and practice, there is limited data on the possibility of similar associations between industry funding and advocacy group positions or activities,” the study authors stated.

“In our view, this new work demonstrates an urgent need for patient advocacy organisations to explicitly focus much more on representing the interests of patients and citizens, rather than serving — inadvertently or otherwise — the interests of their industry sponsors.”

Dr Moynihan concluded, “To ensure a healthier patient voice in medical research, education, policy and practice, sponsored groups that want to be seen as independent and credible need to decrease their industry sponsorship and ultimately disentangle — gaining in authority what they lose in resources.”