Conflict of interest in the health care industry occurs when the primary goal of protecting and increasing the health of patients comes into conflict with any other secondary goal, especially personal gain to healthcare professionals, and increasing revenue to a healthcare organization from selling health care products and services. The Public and private sectors of the medical-industrial complex have various conflicts of interest which are specific to these entities.
Trends
There is a lack of empirical evidence to describe the impact of conflict of interest in the health care industry.
Business interests influence the direction of cancer research and the adoption of new practices in therapy.
University projects which receive industry funding are more likely to produce research outcomes which favor their funders.
A recently updated systematic review by the Cochrane Collaboration found that pharmaceutical and medical device industry sponsored studies are more often favorable to the sponsor's product compared with studies with other sources of sponsorship.
The trend toward treating clinical research as a business has coincided with a range of problems which are likely the result of business connections.
Funders seek and court scientists to author papers and lend their person reputations to add credibility to research findings.