How Corporate Influence Continues to Undermine the Public’s Health
Keywords:
conflicting interests, ethics, morality, policy, public health, knowledge, misconduct, occupational environmental healthAbstract
Objectivity requires the minimization and control of potential biases in the design and interpretation of scientific studies conducted to investigate linkages between exposures and outcomes. Unless the objectivity of science can be assured, the ability of science to advance knowledge in the pursuit of truth will be undermined. While several types of bias are typically controlled at the design stage of a scientific study, the role of influence from any of a number of sources, and with different motivations and intent, is only more recently being recognized for its role in derailing science. This negative influence not only affects the course of science in advancing knowledge, but also in delaying the ability of science to inform policy to prevent ill-effects and achieve justice for potential harms arising from delays caused through the casting of doubt about evidence. The greatest bias of this type comes from those with a vested interest in the outcome, most typically financially driven. To exemplify the problem in occupational and environmental health, we organized a scientific session at the Ramazzini Days in November 2018 entitled Corporate Influence Threatens the Public Health; the abstracts of the papers presented in this session appear on pages 121 of this issue.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
OPEN ACCESS
All the articles of the European Journal of Oncology and Environmental Health are published with open access under the CC-BY Creative Commons attribution license (the current version is CC-BY, version 4.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). This means that the author(s) retain copyright, but the content is free to download, distribute and adapt for commercial or non-commercial purposes, given appropriate attribution to the original article.
The articles in the previous edition of the Journal (European Journal of Oncology) are made available online with open access under the CC-BY Creative Commons attribution license (the current version is CC-BY, version 4.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
Upon submission, author(s) grant the Journal the license to publish their original unpublished work within one year, and the non exclusive right to display, store, copy and reuse the content. The CC-BY Creative Commons attribution license enables anyone to use the publication freely, given appropriate attribution to the author(s) and citing the Journal as the original publisher. The CC-BY Creative Commons attribution license does not apply to third-party materials that display a copyright notice to prohibit copying. Unless the third-party content is also subject to a CC-BY Creative Commons attribution license, or an equally permissive license, the author(s) must comply with any third-party copyright notices.