[Conflicts of interest: a concept often (voluntary) ignored by physicians].
A conflict of interest is a delicate situation where a person with a confidence role like a physician has professional or personal interests competing with the mission he/she has received, making him difficult to perform his/her duty with impartiality. Commercial or financial conflicts of interest of a physician can be personal and direct (gifts, travels, honoraries, consultant fees, etc.) or indirect (in relationship with those of the family or of the institution). There are also non financial conflicts of interest such as the anonymous peer review of the work performed by a friend or a competitor. An abundant literature mainly deals with the links to the pharmaceutical industry. Those links may lead to restrictions for publication and access to the data obtained by the research. The physicians have difficulties for accepting disclosing their conflict of interest. In this article, the literature published on the topic is reviewed as well as the main biases they can induce and the mistakes made by the physicians who do not declare their conflicts. Measures that can be taken to reduce their impact such as the declaration of conflicts of interest are discussed.
Sculier
J P
JP
Service des Soins Intensifs et d'Oncologie Thoracique, Institut Jules Bordet, Centre des Tumeurs de l'Université libre de Bruxelles. sculier@bordet.be
D016265:Conflict of Interest; D006801:Humans; D010820:Physicians