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Online
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Dates
  • February 10, 2022 from 12:00pm to 1:00pm

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Seminar 4 Title: Manufacturing evidence: Industry sponsorship and conduct of research

Famously, tobacco industry executives were quoted as saying, “doubt is our product.” The study of internal documents across tobacco, alcohol, chemical, soft drink, sugar, and pharmaceutical industries has produced a body of evidence describing the ways that corporations seek to generate and disseminate research findings that are favourable to their interests, to suppress findings that are not, and to generate doubt around scientific consensus.

In this seminar, we will have guest speakers detail their current research into the activities of corporations related to the production, funding, and dissemination of scientific research. We will discuss key questions about how to detect biases, minimize and prevent industry influence, and address the distortion of research agendas by commercial interests.

The commercial determinants of health are those activities of the private sector that affect the health of populations. Funding and disseminating unreliable or misleading research are ways that corporations can influence decisions about health. This seminar presents empirical evidence of corporate influence on health research and explores how this influence occurs throughout the entire cycle of the research process. Guest speakers will also summarize ongoing efforts to decrease commercial influences on health research.