In the conduct of research

The overall goal of these guidelines is to preserve public trust by protecting the integrity of professional judgment in patient care and activities affecting the health of populations. Practitioners consulting this text are encouraged to consider the arguments and advice included within it, but are ultimately free to make their own decisions. A number of key points inform the text. The most fundamental is that the primary concern of health professionals is for the safety and welfare of their patients and the community(s) in which they live. This central tenet of health care can, however, be compromised by pecuniary and non-pecuniary interests that lead to conflicts of interest, bias professional judgment, and adversely affect clinical decision making, patient care and population health activities. Importantly, conflicts of interest arise not as a consequence of malign motivations but from the facts and settings in which they occur. Furthermore, neither dualities nor conflicts of interest, in themselves, inevitably cause harm; rather, it is ambiguity about goals and values and the possibility for harm that arouses concern.