FW: Survey on censorship in drug research

 

| http://surveys.iop.kcl.ac.uk/TakeSurvey.asp?SurveyID=3216856J577KG

| Censorship in the Alcohol and Other Drugs Sector

| (Kings College London, Institute of Psychiatry)

| This study seeks to investigate the ways in which different interest groups such as funders, governments, industry sources, lobby groups, amongst others can influence the research process and how prevalent this practice is in the alcohol and other drug (AOD) sector.
| There has been substantial academic and community concern recently over interest groups attempting to influence the research process in the AOD sector. While other professional disciplines such as medicine, have begun documenting the extent to which bodies such as pharmaceutical companies are influencing the scientific knowledge base, this has yet to be done in our field.
| This study seeks to start the process of collecting information about this issue which underpins the integrity of addiction science and has been supported by the leading journals in the field.
| Previous work has identified five major avenues through which funding bodies influence research. These were:
| 1. direct censorship (where material edited or dissemination is interfered with);
| 2. limiting access to data (either affecting some point or to be used as coercion for favourable interpretation);
| 3. ongoing funding insecurity (attaching conditions to subsequent funding if previous findings have been awkward or unwelcome);
| 4. using under-qualified or easily influenced researchers (which allows funders to control the quality of investigation being carried out, even before the research has commenced), and;
| 5. setting research agendas (whereby decisions are based on the political, financial or ideological interests of the funder).
| Similar actions may also be taken by other interest groups, including:
| • Supervisors insisting on changes for inappropriate reasons,
| • Institutions (ie: universities, service providers, data holders) insisting on positive findings,
| • Interest groups (such as service user groups, fellowship organisations) limiting access to current or future data on condition of positive findings.
| We do not require specific institutional or individual names. Rather, we want general descriptions of the type of agency involved (ie: governmental department, pharmaceutical company) or the position held by an individual (ie: Department Head, research liaison, etc). We define regulation or influence as the attempt to change the outcomes of research to suit their own purposes.
| The study has been approved by the Kings College Ethics Committee (PNM/09/10-7). For further information please contact Dr. Peter Miller or Dr. Samantha Gross.