Abstract

In the past few years, there have been a number of high profile incidents that have emphasized the issues associated with financial conflicts of interest. As a result, commentators and policy-makers throughout the world have been directing their attention to how financial conflicts should be addressed. Despite such activity, however, there are few policies that provide specific guidance addressing one of the most common forms of financial conflict-the provision of generous remuneration packages to clinical investigators.In this column, we explore the conflict of interest issues that flow from the pharmaceutical industry paying community physicians to be investigators in clinical drug trials. In particular, we are interested in the challenges associated with the management of this complex issue by local research ethics boards. We suggest the need for more research on this topic and specific guidelines to empower these boards to address this growing concern. We recognize that this is one of many current conflict issues faced by policy-makers today.