Wisconsin Smoking Research Center Hiding Financial Conflicts of Interest with Big Pharma

Yesterday, I revealed that the University of Wisconsin Center for Tobacco Research and Intervention (UW-CTRI) is hiding its own conflict of interest with Big Pharma as well as that of its director on its page where it recommends the use of Chantix for smoking cessation. Today, I reveal that the Center is hiding its funding conflicts throughout its website and even in its annual reports. Most of the individual web pages, including the home page, on the UW-CTRI site fail to disclose its support from Big Pharma and fail to identify the specific pharmaceutical companies supporting the Center. Only if you read the fine print - that is, a separate disclosure page, does the reader find out about the pharmaceutical funding. This is problematic, however, because most readers - especially members of the general public - are not going to specifically search for this disclosure.Even on its funding page, the financial support from pharmaceutical companies is not acknowledged. The Big Pharma support is hidden within more general categories. In its 20th anniversary annual report, covering the years 1992 to 2012, there is no disclosure of Big Pharma funding. On the last page of the report, a number of funders are listed, but no pharmaceutical company is mentioned.In its 2008 annual report, the Center does acknowledge pharmaceutical funding. However, the name(s) of the companies are not disclosed. Nevertheless, in one of the articles listed in the report, a researcher with the Center disclose...
Source: The Rest of the Story: Tobacco News Analysis and Commentary - Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Source Type: blogs