Fossil fuel industry influences medical research, raising ethical concerns
· News-MedicalAn analysis by journalists Hristio Boytchev, Natalie Widmann and Simon Wörpel found that over the past six years, more than 180 medical articles have acknowledged fossil fuel industry funding, and an additional 1000 articles feature authors who worked for a fossil fuel company or related organization.
While many studies don't have an obvious link with fossil fuel industry interests, experts told The BMJ that publishing research benefits the companies by enhancing their reputation and buying influence with researchers and health practitioners.
The BMJ analysis found that Saudi Aramco, Saudi Arabia's national oil company, was involved in around 600 articles, mostly through Johns Hopkins Aramco Healthcare (JHAH), a joint project between the oil giant and Johns Hopkins Medicine. Many of these papers concerned infectious diseases such as covid-19 and Mpox.
Johns Hopkins University, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, and ExxonMobil did not respond to The BMJ's requests to comment. Saudi Aramco declined to comment.
Today's findings come as some experts demand that the fossil fuel industry be treated similarly to tobacco companies. "Fossil fuel companies and the tobacco industry are similar in both the vast scale of harm they cause to health and their tactics of deliberately distorting science", said Anna Gilmore, director of the Tobacco Control Research Group at the University of Bath.
Anna Gilmore, Director, University of BathResearch journals and academic institutions must rethink their collaborations with the fossil fuel industry."
The BMJ has also strengthened its advertising policy by banning advertising from banks that fund fossil fuel companies. "Medical journals have an important role in not only advocating for climate action but also taking action," adds Abbasi.
A spokesperson for Nature Reviews Disease Primers said competing interests are made available to referees and "there is a high degree of editorial oversight for reviews published in the journal." The New England Journal of Medicine, and The Journal of the American Medical Association did not comment.
Source:
Journal reference: