TY - JOUR
T1 - Association of financial or professional conflict of interest to research outcomes on health risks or nutritional assessment studies of genetically modified products
AU - Diels, Johan
AU - Cunha, Mario
AU - Manaia, Célia
AU - Sabugosa-Madeira, Bernardo
AU - Silva, Margarida
N1 - Funding Information:
The classification of the articles based on the co-investigator analysis is presented in Table 1 . From the 94 articles selected, 80 (85%) were identified as containing a favorable outcome, 12 (13%) were classified as unfavorable and two (2%) as neutral. Funding was declared in 45 articles (48%). Thirty-six studies (38%) received funding from non-industry related sources, two (2%) from mixed sources and seven (8%) from industry or industry related sources. Out of these seven articles, six were classified as containing a financial COI.
Funding Information:
Current data do not provide sufficient insight into the underlying dynamics that lead to this particular result, which renders interpretation speculative. One possibility is that studies with active industry participation choose to publish in journals where there are no strict requirements over funding disclosure in order not to reveal funding sources. Very few studies with declared funding received funding from industry only. Additionally, the absolute majority of studies with non-industry funding had no involvement of industry affiliated authors. However, it is unlikely that the proportion of non-industry versus industry funding is representative for research in GM crops, considering the high involvement of industry in biotechnology research ( Lotter, 2008b ).
PY - 2011/4/1
Y1 - 2011/4/1
N2 - Since the first commercial cultivation of genetically modified crops in 1994, the rapidly expanding market of genetically modified seeds has given rise to a multibillion dollar industry. This fast growth, fueled by high expectations towards this new commercial technology and shareholder trust in the involved industry, has provided strong incentives for further research and development of new genetically modified plant varieties. Considering, however, the high financial stakes involved, concerns are raised over the influence that conflicts of interest may place upon articles published in peer-reviewed journals that report on health risks or nutritional value of genetically modified food products. In a study involving 94 articles selected through objective criteria, it was found that the existence of either financial or professional conflict of interest was associated to study outcomes that cast genetically modified products in a favorable light (p= 0.005). While financial conflict of interest alone did not correlate with research results (p= 0.631), a strong association was found between author affiliation to industry (professional conflict of interest) and study outcome (p< 0.001). We discuss these results by comparing them to similar studies on conflicts of interest in other areas, such as biomedical sciences, and hypothesize on dynamics that may help explain such connections.
AB - Since the first commercial cultivation of genetically modified crops in 1994, the rapidly expanding market of genetically modified seeds has given rise to a multibillion dollar industry. This fast growth, fueled by high expectations towards this new commercial technology and shareholder trust in the involved industry, has provided strong incentives for further research and development of new genetically modified plant varieties. Considering, however, the high financial stakes involved, concerns are raised over the influence that conflicts of interest may place upon articles published in peer-reviewed journals that report on health risks or nutritional value of genetically modified food products. In a study involving 94 articles selected through objective criteria, it was found that the existence of either financial or professional conflict of interest was associated to study outcomes that cast genetically modified products in a favorable light (p= 0.005). While financial conflict of interest alone did not correlate with research results (p= 0.631), a strong association was found between author affiliation to industry (professional conflict of interest) and study outcome (p< 0.001). We discuss these results by comparing them to similar studies on conflicts of interest in other areas, such as biomedical sciences, and hypothesize on dynamics that may help explain such connections.
KW - Conflict of interest
KW - Genetically modified plants
KW - GMOs
KW - Health risk
KW - Nutritional value
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=79952313851&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.foodpol.2010.11.016
DO - 10.1016/j.foodpol.2010.11.016
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:79952313851
SN - 0306-9192
VL - 36
SP - 197
EP - 203
JO - Food Policy
JF - Food Policy
IS - 2
ER -
