EIJC18 & Dataharvest

Scientists and medical doctors are often sponsored by industry, in some cases leading to bias. This sponsoring is hardly transparent for journalists and citizens alike. Here we present and discuss two approaches to address that problem.

Pharmaceutical companies are regularly sponsoring medical doctors, and thereby potentially influencing their decisions. As part of a self-regulatory initiative, the European pharmaceutical companies are now publishing the donations they have given medical doctors. These publications are voluntary and incomplete. Still, by mining them, important insights into the influencing of doctors by pharmaceutical industry can be gained.

Another approach uses scientific papers as data source. In many journals, scientists are required to state any industry funding they have received. "Follow the grant" is an ongoing project to build a database of these statements of conflicts of interest and funding. Its aim is to help journalists, experts and citizens to systematically look for who is sponsoring research.