Disclosing Conflicts of Interest to Potential Research Participants: Good for Nothing?

Abstract

The growing commercialization of science has raised concerns about financial conflicts of interest (COIs). Evidence suggests that such conflicts threaten the integrity of research and the well-being of research participants. Trying to minimize these negative effects, federal agencies, academic institutions, and publishers have developed conflictof-interest policies. Among such policies, recommendations or requirements to disclose financial COIs to potential research participants and patients have become commonplace. Here, I argue that disclosing conflicts of interest to potential research participants fails to achieve the weighty moral goals that presumably ground such policies. This is so either because disclosure is simply a wrong means for achieving some of the goals in question or because, although disclosure could be an appropriate means for some of those goals, the way in which it is implemented prevents fulfillment of the desirable moral aim. KEYWORDS human subjects research, human research ethics, conflict of interest, disclosure, trust, trustworthy science, research participant welfare, informed decision-making