Workshop proceedings: managing conflict of interest in science. A little consensus and a lot of controversy.
There is no doubt that participants in the Conflict of Interest (COI) Workshop at the Society of Toxicology (SOT) 2005 Annual Meeting (New Orleans, 6-10 March 2005) engaged in a vigorous and useful exchange of diverse ideas and viewpoints. While there was consensus on the value and interest of this Workshop, there was less consensus and more controversy over many of the issues discussed during the Workshop, which included the distinction between bias and conflict, the success or failure of policies of disclosure, whether waivers should or should not be granted to conflicted individuals in order to seat a "balanced" committee with appropriate expertise, whether conflicted individuals retain the ability to recognize their own conflict, and more. The discussion left no doubt, however, that conflict of interest will remain an important and controversial issue in the scientific community for some time to come.