Green Life

"The fiasco of the strategy against influenza A, developed by experts with conflicts of interest, is just one more example of the adverse consequences of a system of public expertise dependent industry. Faced with inertia of the authorities, the citizens and associations to mobilize to break this vicious circle.

The Citizen Science Foundation regrets that the Round Table "Expertise and Conflicts of Interest", held December 10 by the High Health Authority (HAS) in either remained in mutual congratulation speech, without inventory or review of specific proposals change. But this permanent ambiguity between private and public interests can not end without a law to define and implement an effective ethics expertise.

The HAS, the LEEM (organization of the pharmaceutical industry), AFSSA (Agence Food Safety), a state councilor and opinion leaders argue that the system of expertise and information s' is improved because they now openly pronounce the term "conflict of interest" and a rudimentary public declaration of interest exists ...

This good should alert the civil society on a major danger: transparency (very incomplete) on links with industry experts is an excuse used to justify conflicts of interest and to defuse the issue whether a citizen deliberation on the system as a whole. Accept the lobbying influence by interest groups and conflicts of interest, provided they are transparent, it is a slippery slope that could lead to the outright disappearance of the general lack of powerful interest groups to raise it.

Transparency is not an end in itself but a step towards reducing and eliminating conflicts of interest. This is a central tenet of the proposed Citizen Sciences Foundation, with the creation of a High Authority of expertise and independent alarm. As ethics forum, it must lay the principles of ethics expertise, stating as pluralistic and multidisciplinary, always contradictory, transparent at all levels (raw data, proceedings, criteria for selecting experts ...) and making room for civic expertise. A right of association and referral of a fund financing should enable the realization of this expertise. The High Authority would define the status of experts and affirm their responsibility and it would require complete disclosures of interests and have a right to control and sanction.

It would define what is or is not alert, and the status of whistleblowers. These are the only ones to break this expert system locked by conflicts of interest, and there must be a legal framework protects them from retaliation to which they are exposed.

The criticisms and questions that the Citizen Science Foundation could make at this roundtable are unanswered. The issue is nevertheless important: it is our health tous.Les citizens must demand a rethinking of the current system of expertise and decision-making political health. They must thwart the attempts of normalization and legitimization of lobbying, as does the citizen before setting up the network ETAL (Framing and Transparency in Lobbying Activities). "