Compared with financial conflicts of interest in the research setting, “nonfinancial conflicts of interests are more subtle yet more pervasive and cannot be eliminated,” Dr. Norman G. Levinsky stresses in the September 5th issue of The New England Journal of Medicine.

 Dr. Levinsky, from Boston University Medical Center, notes that while nonfinancial interests such as advancing one’s career are ethical and appropriate, they “may conflict, or appear to conflict, with the interest of subjects in minimizing the risk of psychological harm, physical injury, or death.”

 To deal with the problem, Dr. Levinsky recommends several steps that should be taken. The first is for the “leaders of research institutions to acknowledge that these conflicts are intrinsic to research that involves human subjects, whether or not there are financial conflicts of interest.”

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