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Medical Colleges Announce Human Research Guidelines
The Association of American Medical Colleges announced new conflict-of-interest guidelines for those engaged in research involving human subjects. The guidelines call for institutions to establish a "rebuttable presumption" that individuals with significant financial interest in research involving human subjects should not conduct that research. Under certain circumstances, the guidelines say, such individuals might in fact be the best qualified to conduct the research, so the intended effect of the presumption is not to bar absolutely their involvement but to ensure that such involvement is always closely scrutinized.
Ethics and conflicts of interest in scientific research have received increased attention from scholars, academic groups, and lawmakers in recent years, and guidelines on different aspects of these topics have been issued or drafted by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, editors of medical journals, and the AAUP. The Association published a statement on corporate funding of academic research in the May–June 2001 issue of Academe.
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