Ethics and industry-sponsored research

Steven Lewis and colleagues have proposed a reasonable concept but, as is the wont of those who administer, they cannot refrain from trying to impose another layer of administration.¹ Surely, with their present administrative hierarchy our universities and, in particular, our ethical review committees are able to implement guidelines such as those proposed by Lewis and colleagues, should the universities choose to adopt them. I can see little need, except that of administrative aggrandizement, for some other overseeing body. I note that the authors have not failed to target the pharmaceutical industry as the body that should pay, thereby adding to the cost of bringing new therapeutic agents to patients.

Instead of a proposal that the universities and the pharmaceutical industry deal with individual transgressions, I see the usual administrative urge to make one size fit all. Given the litany of administrative failures to achieve the latter in other areas of medicine, we should be chary of allowing this proposal to proceed in an uncritical manner.