{"id":31999,"date":"2014-07-18T16:39:57","date_gmt":"2014-07-18T15:39:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/?p=31999"},"modified":"2014-07-18T16:39:57","modified_gmt":"2014-07-18T15:39:57","slug":"richard-smith-misunderstanding-conflict-of-interest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/2014\/07\/18\/richard-smith-misunderstanding-conflict-of-interest\/","title":{"rendered":"Richard Smith: Misunderstanding conflict of interest"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/files\/2014\/06\/richard_smith2.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft  wp-image-31865\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/files\/2014\/06\/richard_smith2-300x292.jpg\" alt=\"richard_smith2\" width=\"211\" height=\"205\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/files\/2014\/06\/richard_smith2-300x292.jpg 300w, https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/files\/2014\/06\/richard_smith2-1024x997.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/files\/2014\/06\/richard_smith2.jpg 1299w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 211px) 100vw, 211px\" \/><\/a>In Britain we have had a row over whether a judge, Elizabeth Butler Sloss, should chair an inquiry into child abuse. Everybody agrees that she has the necessary skills and unquestionable integrity, but she has a conflict of interest: her long dead brother <a href=\"http:\/\/www.telegraph.co.uk\/news\/politics\/10955726\/Brother-of-paedophile-inquiry-judge-was-accused-of-cover-up.html\">was in the government and may have been involved in covering up child abuse<\/a>. The case has exposed deep misunderstanding on the nature of conflict of interest.<\/p>\n<p>The country is in the grip of a moral panic over historical cases of child sexual abuse, with well known entertainers going to prison for abuses they committed 50 years ago. Every day we hear rumours of which \u201cnational treasure\u201d (a British clich\u00e9) will be next. So the government had to react quickly to the possibility that politicians themselves had covered up abuses. In the rush to appoint a chair to the inquiry, the government probably overlooked Butler Sloss\u2019s conflict of interest, and so she was appointed.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>But the conflict immediately came to light, and those who had been abused\u2014horribly familiar with being shoved to one side by the establishment\u2014objected. From their point of view, there was also a broader conflict in that Butler Sloss is very much part of the establishment (a shadowy notion, but essentially the ruling class) that has failed them.<\/p>\n<p>Initially, Butler Sloss decided that she would not resign, but as more voices called on her to stand down, she eventually did.<\/p>\n<p>What struck me about this story is that most commentators mixed up integrity and conflict of interest, somehow concluding that if you had high integrity then conflict of interest was irrelevant. In medicine we have been debating and studying conflict of interest for at least 30 years, and slowly but surely, everybody in medicine is coming to understand that conflict of interest is a state, not a behaviour. You can have the highest integrity, but your judgement can still be compromised by conflict of interest.<\/p>\n<p>We have an advantage in medicine when it comes to understanding this because we are familiar with the need for double blind randomised controlled trials. We know that as the quality of a trial mounts\u2014properly randomised, single blind, double blind\u2014effects size shrinks. The reason that a new drug seems remarkably effective when used in an uncontrolled series of 10 cases, but much less effective when tested in a large double blind randomised trial, is not because investigators are dishonest, but because of bias, which is subtle, invasive, and ubiquitous.<\/p>\n<p>Making judgements on a mountain of information, much of it conflicting (as judges have to do), is a highly complex activity, and bias\u2014conflict of interest\u2014will inevitably have an influence. Reaching a judgement is not a purely rational process, and we do not understand exactly why we reach the conclusions we do. So people who have to make complex judgements should have minimal conflicts of interest.<\/p>\n<p>There is another issue with conflict of interest, which relates to the legal principle that \u201cjustice must be seen to be done.\u201d Whenever somebody is dragged through the courts in a salacious case and eventually found innocent, there is a call for cases to be heard in camera, but they are rightly always resisted. If a case is held in camera then there remain lingering doubts that it wasn\u2019t fairly conducted, and the same doubts prevail if there are conflicts of interest.<\/p>\n<p>Conflicts of interest are, of course, common, and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/pmc\/articles\/PMC2642863\/\">I have written with others on \u201cthe fallacy of impartiality,\u201d<\/a> but some conflicts of interest are more extreme than others. The difficult judgement that has to be made is when the conflict is so extreme that the conflicted person must be excluded\u2014as has finally happened with Elizabeth Butler Sloss. That difficult judgement must be made by somebody with as small a conflict of interest as possible.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Richard Smith<\/strong>\u00a0was the editor of The BMJ until 2004. He is now chair of the board of trustees of icddr,b [formerly International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh], and chair of the board of Patients Know Best. He is also a trustee of C3 Collaborating for Health.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In Britain we have had a row over whether a judge, Elizabeth Butler Sloss, should chair an inquiry into child abuse. Everybody agrees that she has the necessary skills and [&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"btn btn-secondary understrap-read-more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/2014\/07\/18\/richard-smith-misunderstanding-conflict-of-interest\/\">More&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":38364,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[955],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31999","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-richard-smith"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Richard Smith: Misunderstanding conflict of interest - The BMJ<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/2014\/07\/18\/richard-smith-misunderstanding-conflict-of-interest\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Richard Smith: Misunderstanding conflict of interest - The BMJ\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In Britain we have had a row over whether a judge, Elizabeth Butler Sloss, should chair an inquiry into child abuse. Everybody agrees that she has the necessary skills and [...]More...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/2014\/07\/18\/richard-smith-misunderstanding-conflict-of-interest\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The BMJ\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/bmjdotcom\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2014-07-18T15:39:57+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/files\/2017\/02\/Richard-Smith.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"540\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"350\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"BMJ\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@bmj_latest\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@bmj_latest\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"BMJ\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.bmj.com\\\/bmj\\\/2014\\\/07\\\/18\\\/richard-smith-misunderstanding-conflict-of-interest\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.bmj.com\\\/bmj\\\/2014\\\/07\\\/18\\\/richard-smith-misunderstanding-conflict-of-interest\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"BMJ\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.bmj.com\\\/bmj\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/ba3da426ed20e8f1d933ca367d8216fe\"},\"headline\":\"Richard Smith: Misunderstanding conflict of interest\",\"datePublished\":\"2014-07-18T15:39:57+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.bmj.com\\\/bmj\\\/2014\\\/07\\\/18\\\/richard-smith-misunderstanding-conflict-of-interest\\\/\"},\"wordCount\":691,\"commentCount\":1,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.bmj.com\\\/bmj\\\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.bmj.com\\\/bmj\\\/2014\\\/07\\\/18\\\/richard-smith-misunderstanding-conflict-of-interest\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.bmj.com\\\/bmj\\\/files\\\/2017\\\/02\\\/Richard-Smith.jpg\",\"articleSection\":[\"Richard Smith\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.bmj.com\\\/bmj\\\/2014\\\/07\\\/18\\\/richard-smith-misunderstanding-conflict-of-interest\\\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.bmj.com\\\/bmj\\\/2014\\\/07\\\/18\\\/richard-smith-misunderstanding-conflict-of-interest\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.bmj.com\\\/bmj\\\/2014\\\/07\\\/18\\\/richard-smith-misunderstanding-conflict-of-interest\\\/\",\"name\":\"Richard Smith: Misunderstanding conflict of interest - 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