After 20 years, industry critics bury skeptics, despite empirical vacuum.

After more than 20 years, the conflict of interest (COI) movement has failed to substantiate its central claim that interactions between physicians, researchers and the medical products industry cause physicians to make clinical decisions that are adverse to the best interests of their patients. The COI movement's instigators have produced no solid evidence of harm commensurate with their extravagant allegations. At the same time, they have diverted resources away from more worthwhile pursuits, such as basic and applied medical research, clinical care and medical education towards onerous compliance exercises and obtrusive laws. Perhaps worst of all, they have made it respectable to ignore the epistemological foundations of medical science, diverting attention away from the scientific merit of the information presented and focusing it instead on the identity and motives of those who present the information.

Diagnosing death: What's trust got to do with it?

Physicians licensed to practice medicine have enjoyed socially endorsed, legally underwritten status-trust to a remarkable degree. However, such trust is not endorsed equally by all segments of American society, most notably, by African Americans. Because physicians underappreciate this fact, they fail to understand how routine medical behavior can disproportionately exacerbate African Americans' pre-existing suspicions. On the other hand, overinterpretation of this fact needlessly risks despair. A theory of trust provides guidance in resolving clinical conflicts.