Potential conflicts of interest in medical research have become a hot topic in recent years.
Increasingly, research ethics boards, health institutions and medical-journal editors are asking probing questions. They want to know if a study has been paid for by a drug company or whether the scientists have financial ties that could cloud their professional judgment.
Right now, though, these issues are being raised in a rather ad hoc, unco-ordinated manner. And no one is necessarily keeping track of all the answers. So a group of influential leaders in the Canadian research community has put together a checklist of questions that could travel along with studies from start to finish.
"The checklist is a living document intended to be completed and updated throughout the life of a study, therefore providing an opportunity for investigators to report potential issues early on so that they can be addressed and managed," said one of the authors of the guidelines, Paula Rochon, a senior scientist at Women's College Research Institute in Toronto.
The checklist includes a broad range of topics, from the source of funding to who will be responsible for analyzing and interpreting the data.
The group has published the checklist in the on-line journal Open Medicine. "Clearly, we are looking for feedback," said Dr. Rochon, adding that she hopes the checklist will eventually become widely used.