Define Conflict Of Interest

A victory over bigotry

Some of them have been assailing the federal judge who famously struck down California's ban on gay marriage. Vaughn Walker, chief judge of the U.S. District Court in San Francisco (and a Republican appointee), ruled last August that the ban was unconstitutional and that gays should have the right to marry, but the bigots didn't go quietly. They insisted that the historic ruling wasn't legit. They had heard rumors that Walker himself was gay - in their words, he was "an active practitioner of the homosexual lifestyle" - and therefore, they argued, he should not have taken the case in the first place. Then, on April 6, the newly-retired Walker confirmed in a newspaper interview that he was indeed gay, and that he has lived for 10 years with a male physician. In response, gay marriage foes went back to federal court. For the last six weeks, they've been arguing that Walker's ruling should be thrown out, that in essence his gayness was, by definition, an unethical conflict of interest. By all accounts, this argument broke new ground. Apparently it was the first time that a federal judge's sexual orientation has prompted questions about impartiality and calls for disqualification. The gay marriage foes basically argued, in their April 25 court motion, that because Walker was living with another guy, and that because he might have an interest in getting married, his decision in favor of gay marriage was therefore inherently biased. (Their argument was a clever sleight of hand. They insisted that Walker's gay orientation wasn't the problem; the issue was that, because he had a gay relationship, he therefore had "an interest in the outcome" of the case.) James Ware, the new chief judge of the U.S. District Court (another Republican appointee), stood up for Walker and tartly observed, "The presumption that 'all people in same-sex relationships think alike' is an unreasonable presumption, and one which has no place in legal reasoning." Moreover, the presumption that Walker's gay relationship "rendered him incapable of making an impartial decision is as warrantless as the presumption that a female judge is incapable of being impartial in a case in which women seek legal relief." The latter sentence is significant.

Conflicts of interest at Federal agencies - The Scientist ...

For instance, the agency plans to revise the guidelines used to determine when an expert with a conflict of interest deserves a waiver, typically issued when the conflict is deemed to be insignificant, or the scientist's expertise too great to lose. In addition, the FDA plans to look at ways to improve explaining to the public why some scientists received waivers. The Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) also issued a report today that found that nearly one in five scientists appointed to a sample of expert panels convened by the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) had "direct financial ties" to companies with a stake in the outcome of the debate. Nearly half of panels contained an imbalance of interests, with too many scientists with industry ties and not enough scientists with alternative viewpoints, such as ties to environmental or public interest groups, to "offset" the imbalance, according to the report. "I think that there is a fairly consistent pattern, in some [NAS] committees - not all - that there is an imbalance," Merrill Goozner, director of Integrity in Science at CSPI, told The Scientist . The NAS consistently puts out "pretty good reports," Goozner noted, but having an excess of pro-industry experts likely has subtle effects on more subtle questions, such as how much dioxin is toxic. FDA committees are made up of both standing committee members and ad hoc experts chosen because of their expertise in a given area, since it's administratively "almost impossible" to convene an entirely new group of experts every time there's an issue to debate, Gottlieb explained. And the agency can't foresee years ahead what issues will come up that will give a standing committee member a conflict of interest, he said. It's "unrealistic" to try to eliminate conflicts of interest, Gottlieb argued; the best solution is to try to "manage" it, he said. But the FDA does not always manage conflicts of interest, said Curt Furberg at Wake Forest University, who is on the Drug Safety and Risk Management committee through May, 2007. For instance, Furberg attended the three-day hearing on the safety of COX-2 inhibitors; some of the ad hoc members had "close ties to industry," and most of them voted to keep the drug Bextra on the market. (Furberg voted against leaving Bextra on the market; the FDA asked Pfizer to withdraw the drug in April, 2005.

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Conflict of Interest

A blackmailer exploits the conflict of interest.

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