Understanding and Defining the Role of Industry-Sponsored Research

Natasha Calder, MA, ELS, received her Master s degree from the University of Houston-Clear Lake. She has worked as a medical writer for more than 10 years for both academia and industry. She is a member of the Board of Editors in the Life Sciences (BELS) and the American Medical Writers Association (AMWA).

Emerging conflicts of interest and abuse in the distribution of scientific information have those in the scientific community grappling with ways to protect the scientific publication process. The increasing prominence of industry-sponsored research is perceived to be largely responsible for the conflict. Despite the implementation of measures intended to limit the role of industry in science, however, new abuses continue to emerge. A revolution in thinking, therefore, is needed to put scientific publications within a framework that allows the system to be better understood. This new framework must exist outside of the long-held belief that, because science is concerned with the pursuit of absolute truths, science and scientists are impervious to error and abuse. A rhetorical approach to the scientific publication process will allow science to be evaluated more critically and understood as a collaborative and evolving process that is subject to the same limitations as other forms of communication.