Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A· 2026Q1
Disclosure policies and the epistemic corruption of biomedical research
- 0citations
- Q1SCImago
- 2026year
Short summary
Disclosure policies in biomedical journals are ineffective at preventing the epistemic corruption of research due to industry funding because the biomedical community lacks a normative agreement on how private funding harms the public interest in pharmaceutical products.
AI-generated from the title and abstract; the full text is not read.
Key points
- Disclosure policies in biomedical journals are widely considered ineffective in addressing conflicts of interest (COI) from industry funding.
- Effectiveness of disclosure requires a community-wide normative agreement that industry sponsorship corrupts research.
- Reaching this agreement necessitates consensus on the public interest in pharmaceutical products and how private funding undermines it.
- Biomedical communities are far from achieving this consensus, as evidenced by analyses of epistemic corruption.
- Disclosure policies remain defensible as imperfect disclaimers of potential risks associated with industry sponsorship.
AI-generated from the title and abstract; the full text is not read.
Abstract
Disclosure policies in biomedical journals require authors to disclose potential conflicts of interest (COI), typically -but not exclusively- originating in the industry funding they receive for their research. The consensus among philosophers and sociologists studying COI is that disclosure policies are not working. This failure has been interpretated by pharma scholars as a telling sign of the corruption of biomedical research. But how could have disclosure policies worked? Using Bicchieri's theory of social norms, we are going to argue that for disclosing to work in correcting the adverse effects of COI, it would be necessary for the biomedical community to have a normative agreement about the corruptive effects of industry sponsorship. To reach this agreement, we argue, it is necessary to form a consensus on the public interest regarding pharmaceutical products, and how private funding would harm it. An analysis of Sismondo's account of the epistemic corruption of biomedical research will show how far biomedical communities are from reaching this consensus. It is therefore unsurprising that disclosure policies do not work. Yet, they are still defensible as disclaimers: imperfect warnings about the potential risks of industry sponsorship in a world in which there is no agreement on why the latter is pernicious.
The authors' abstract, as published at the source. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A, 2026 · DOI ↗
Continue with a free account
Ask the paper: 3 free questions a day about this paper; save it, get its citation, new summaries every day for your field. Takeaways are Premium.
Continue free on the webSign in with Google or Apple; no card needed. You come back to this paper.
On your phone:
Field: Pharmacology (Pharmacology, Toxicology and Pharmaceutics)
PharmacologyPharmacology, Toxicology and Pharmaceutics