If this is your first visit, be sure to check out the FAQ by clicking the link above. You may have to register before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages, select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below. |
|
|
Thread Tools | Display Modes |
#1
|
|||
|
|||
Dr Andrew Wakefield In His own Words Q2 Conflicts of Interest and Dishonesty?
Question 2: Conflicts of Interest and Dishonesty?
[Transcript] There have been some slightly difficult moments about differences of opinion, for example with Richard Horton over conflicts of interests...the Lancet statement on conflict is: 'anything that would embarrass you if it were later disclosed', and my involvement with the Legal Aid Board didn't embarrass me at all, and it wasn't relevant, in my opinion, to disclose it in the Lancet paper because they didn't fund any of the Lancet paper, they funded a subsequent viralogical study, as was always intended, but it had been misrepresented in the media that they had funded the Lancet study, and it wasn't disclosed, and this was the perception Richard Horton originally had, and when I was aked about this by him way back in 2004 I said, no, they didn't fund the study at all, they funded a separate study, and he said 'well in that case it could be perceived as a potential conflict of interest', and I said where did that come from? The statement as I read it in the Lancet, the requirement is to 'disclose things that might embarrass you if they emerge later'. And it was interesting because within that document, which was self contained, anyone writing a paper for the Lancet would just need to read that and the actual statement is the test of conflict of interest in the Lancet is an easy one, 'anything that would embarrass you', and so you don't go beyond that, it is a self contained document, why would you go any further, but there is a website flagged up in there where you can go and there is a more broader description of conflict of interest there which does include potential or perceived conflicts of interest, which no one ever went to. Why would you do it? You have got it in front of you. Now there is a very big difference. Anything that would embarrass you is the active move, OK, it is what would embarrass me, so I can think what would embarrass me, and I can make a decision about that. What others might perceive to be a conflict of interest is myriad, it goes on forever. You have to put yourself in the third person and think what might someone else with their various views and biases construe to be a conflict of interest, and that is massive, where does that end? So that is a huge conceptual leap in terms as to what you would disclose, and there was no formal way for doing it at the time. Now you have a document where you fill in the boxes, saying no shares, no this, no that. That is very straight foreword, but in those days it wasn't, it was highly ambiguous, and it was always my intention, and always was disclosed, when there was a direct funding for a study, a grant giving body, or in this case the Legal Aid Board, and so in the viral study it was disclosed, 'this study was supported in part by the Legal Aid Board, and Dr Wakefield is acting as an expert in the MMR litigation', that is an easy one as it goes, but in the Lancet study I felt no need to disclose it at all, and neither did any of my colleagues who knew that I was involved with the Legal aid Board on behalf of some of these children. So that was a difficult moment but it was a difference of opinion, he thought I should have disclosed it. I felt at the time that I didn't, now in retrospect, having seen this new document about perceived conflict I can see that it should have been disclosed, but there was no dishonesty, and he was good enough to say there was no intent to deceive, 'when Dr Wakefield was asked about it he was entirely open, he said yes there was this grant'. We got into an argument and debate about what was or wasn't a conflict of interest, but there was absolutely no intent to deceive and the charge is dishonesty, so he was extremely helpful in this as much he said, no this was not dishonest, this was a genuine difference of opinion, and so that then largely resolved. |
Thread Tools | |
Display Modes | |
|
|