Wikipedia talk:Conflicts of interest (medicine)

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I've removed this, because it seemed to encourage COI editing, including financial COI/paid editing. Also, it equated healthcare professionals and people with medical conditions, neither of whom have a COI, with pharmaceutical employees, who do have a COI. Bringing it here for other views:

"Adding non-controversial information. Employees in the medical manufacturing industries might be in a unique position to provide commercial, regulatory, and historical information for products. Healthcare professionals are often skilled at explaining complex disease processes.  Patients with chronic medical conditions often understand the prognosis and social impact of a medical challenge.  Within your expertise, focus on the 90% that everyone agrees on, rather than the 10% that is disputed."

Sarah (talk) 18:57, 1 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks User:SlimVirgin Doc James  (talk · contribs · email) 20:56, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

Back when I started this, the idea wasn't "everyone listed here is bad", much less that everyone was equally likely to have a COI. It was more like "depending upon your individual situation, you might have a COI or you might not. Here's what's typically a problem for different types of editors, and here's what each type can usually do without getting into trouble".

For example, most healthcare providers and patients aren't destroying articles for the sake of filthy lucre or fame, but some of them are (see: any patient who has written an autobiography and spammed it around on Wikipedia). Similarly, you should take a long spoon to sup with most public relations staff, but some public relations staff are relatively helpful (e.g., providing copies of newspaper articles and pointing out subtle vandalism or blatant factual errors). With the exception of official public relations staff, I don't want to anoint any group as being either entirely pure or entirely foul. My experience is that individuals in these groups are heterogeneous. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:50, 2 September 2015 (UTC)


 * Hi, it's not a question of pure or foul, but of COI. COI isn't about a person's state of mind. It is entirely about whether they have a clash of roles or relationships. We're not necessarily criticizing a judge's state of mind when we expect her to stand down from a case involving her husband. She might be perfectly able to judge the case well, but to any outsider it would have the appearance of corruption. Similarly, it would have the appearance of corruption if a PR person for a pharmaceutical company were to write the Wikipedia articles on that company's products. Sarah (talk) 17:41, 2 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Sure, but the question with patients is more like "If the judge re-writes a Wikipedia article to prevent her husband from making a choice she disagrees with, then does that create 'the appearance of corruption'?" I think it can, in which case even patients and their family members can indeed have a COI, and therefore should be mentioned.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:51, 2 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Anyone can have a COI. The question is whether people with an illness have a COI in relation to that illness simply because they suffer from it. The answer is no. We could imagine all kinds of scenarios that might lead to a COI (but what if they did this or the that?). There was a case of a patient who felt he had been harmed by a hospital who arrived to add criticism of the hospital. He had a COI because he felt he had been harmed by that institution, so it had become a personal dispute. But it was not because of his status qua patient. Sarah (talk) 00:05, 3 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Sarah, I believe that COI is—partly—"about a person's state of mind". If the action you want to talk to help yourself in the real world is different from the action that would help Wikipedia, then there is a "conflict" in your "interests".
 * I agree that only a fraction of patients are trying to manipulate Wikipedia for their personal benefit, but I think it is appropriate and reasonable to mention that this phenomenon exists. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:13, 10 October 2015 (UTC)