Healthy Skepticism Library item: 15966

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Publication type: Journal Article

Spelsberg A, Martiny A, Schoenhoefer PS.
Is disclosure of potential conflicts of interest in medicine and public health sufficient to increase transparency and decrease corruption?: How could disclosure of interests work better in medicine, epidemiology and public health?
J Epidemiol Community Health 2009; 63:(8):603-605
http://jech.bmj.com/cgi/content/extract/63/8/603?etoc

Abstract:

When Transparency International was founded in 1993, the focus for fighting corruption was mainly on bribes and corruption of civil servants in developing countries. While our definition of corruption was broad from the beginning, that is abuse of power or of a powerful position for personal advantage or benefit, the concept of preventing corruption had to be adjusted more recently. A first consideration of conflicts of interests appeared in our A–B–C of fighting corruption (2002) stating that

… conflicts between private and professionally consigned interests-be it in public office or in the private sector-create susceptibility to corruption. In addition to the general demand of keeping private and professional interests separate, specific codes of conduct should provide suitable examples of potential conflicts. A reliable code should contain the obligation to disclose and obtain a permit for acceptable cases or, vice versa, examples of unacceptable cases of conflicts of interests which should . . .