Abstract
Concerns about conflicts of interest in commercially funded research have generated increasing disclosure requirements, but are these enough to assess influence? Using the Coca-Cola Company as an example, we explore its research agreements to understand influence. Freedom of Information requests identified 87,013 pages of documents, including five agreements between Coca-Cola and public institutions in the United States, and Canada. We assess whether they allowed Coca-Cola to exercise control or influence. Provisions gave Coca-Cola the right to review research in advance of publication as well as control over (1) study data, (2) disclosure of results and (3) acknowledgement of Coca-Cola funding. Some agreements specified that Coca-Cola has the ultimate decision about any publication of peer-reviewed papers prior to its approval of the researchers’ final report. If so desired, Coca-Cola can thus prevent publication of unfavourable research, but we found no evidence of this to date in the emails we received. The documents also reveal researchers can negotiate with funders successfully to remove restrictive clauses on their research. We recommend journals supplement funding disclosures and conflict-of-interest statements by requiring authors to attach funder agreements.
Highlights
In the wake of criticisms about a lack of transparency of financial support for medical and scientific research, several multinational corporations (MNCs) recently committed to publishing relevant information on the scale and nature of their investments in research, publishing lists of projects they fund and developing principles to apply to their relationship with researchers
As part of the “Sponsored Clinical Trial Research Agreement” between Coca-Cola and the Board of Supervisors of Louisiana State University, represented by Pennington Biomedical Research Center (PBRC), we find a 2012 research agreement for a study with Timothy Church as Principal Investigator related to fluid balance and performance with ad libitum water, flavoured placebo or carbohydrate-electrolyte beverage intake during exercise in the heat [18]
Our review of Coca-Cola’s research agreements reveals that it uses terms in line with standard funding agreements seen with other corporate actors
Summary
In the wake of criticisms about a lack of transparency of financial support for medical and scientific research, several multinational corporations (MNCs) recently committed to publishing relevant information on the scale and nature of their investments in research, publishing lists of projects they fund and developing principles to apply to their relationship with researchers. Are these measures sufficient to disclose the potentially complex nature of these relationships and associated contractual obligations?. It released the list of partnerships and research funding with an explicit statement that those researchers that it funded on the list were:
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