Determining Disclosure

In the New England Journal of Medicine, bioethicists report on their study of five years' worth of data from the Conflict of Interest Notification Study funded by NIH to come up with six goals for disclosure. Broadly, those goals are to promote informed decisions by participants, respect their right to know, establish trust, minimize liability, discourage financial relationships, and protect participants' welfare. "Disclosure alone is not enough," Johns Hopkins's Jeremy Sugarman says to Scientific Blogging. "It is not the remedy that many seek, although the process may have a positive effect on patients' satisfaction with and trust in the research process."