CDC is Intentionally Hiding Conflicts of Interest of Surgeon General's Report Authors

Earlier this week, I revealed that the 2014 Surgeon General's report fails to disclose the conflicts of interest of its authors, many of whom have received money from pharmaceutical companies which manufacture the very products about which the report opines. I also explained how this is particularly problematic, since the report itself complains about how historically, tobacco-funded scientists failed to disclose their conflicts of interest. I concluded that the 2014 Surgeon General's report is violating the very ethical principles that it attacks the tobacco company for violating in the past, and I note that while there has been substantial progress in the past 50 years in the area of disclosure of conflicts of interest, somehow that progress has evaded the producers of the Surgeon General's report itself.Today, I reveal that the CDC's Office on Smoking and Health (OSH) - the lead agency that produces the report - is apparently intentionally hiding the conflicts of interest. In other words, OSH knows about these conflicts but has apparently decided not to share this information with the public. That is, OSH is intentionally hiding these conflicts from the public.The Rest of the StoryYesterday, I was informed by one of the contributing authors to the 2014 Surgeon General's report that each of the authors and reviewers of the report was required to complete conflict of interest disclosure forms. This makes the problem even more serious than it initially appeared. It now s...
Source: The Rest of the Story: Tobacco News Analysis and Commentary - Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Source Type: blogs