-Ruff continued from page 17 Epi Monitor: Do you believe scientists can work ethically and productively for industry? If not, why not?
“I believe it would be preferable for research into public health issues to be financed by public funds,”
Ruff: Yes, indeed. Epi Monitor: What suggestions do you have for remedies for potential conflicts of interest since it is not practical to sever all relationships between scientists and industry, nor would we want to discourage good scientists from doing good science in the private sector. Ruff: The examples of Buffler and Boffetta are ones in which scientists, who have worked in the field of public health for many years and have won trust and respect, betray that trust and respect by accepting industry financing and then coming up with scientifically flawed and biased findings that serve the industry’s interests.
"...industrial influence on scientific research and outcome has been a powerful legacy of the tobacco story.“
I believe it would be preferable for research into public health issues to be financed by public funds, not by industries, who usually have a vested interest in the outcome of the research. As Dr. Allan M. Brandt reported in his paper, Inventing Conflicts of Interest: A History of Tobacco Industry Tactics, “the steps the industry took as it fashioned a new relationship with the scientific enterprise have become a powerful and influential model for the exertion of commercial interests within science and medicine since that time. As a result, industrial influence on scientific research and outcome has been a powerful legacy of the tobacco story.”1 I do not have enough information to be able to comment on the role played by scientists who work internally for the private sector. . 1 Brandt, Allan M., (2012), American Journal of Public Health, Vol 102, No. 1 , Consequences of Industry Relationships, p. 63
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