Department of Bioethics, Faculty of Medicine, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.
NUS Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health, National University of Singapore, Singapore.
Bioethics. 2020 Jan;34(1):114-122. doi: 10.1111/bioe.12619. Epub 2019 Aug 25.
The tobacco industry's involvement in the electronic cigarette research that informs public health policy is controversial. On the one hand, some are concerned that their involvement presents conflicts of interest that bias research outputs and invalidate the policies that use them. On the other hand, some have argued that the tobacco industry may support valid research and contribute to the goals of public health, for instance, if the interests of the e-cigarette industry could be part of a tobacco smoking cessation policy. We approach this debate from the ethical perspective of the public interest and the public good, considering how legitimate researchers can square their expert opinion with validating tobacco industry-funded research, given the perfidy of the tobacco industry and paucity of robust, conclusive evidence on the public health impacts of liberalizing e-cigarette use.
烟草业参与电子烟研究以影响公共卫生政策的做法存在争议。一方面，有人担心他们的参与会带来利益冲突，从而影响研究成果，并使使用这些研究成果的政策失去效力。另一方面，也有人认为，烟草业可能会支持有效的研究并为公共卫生目标做出贡献，例如，如果电子烟行业的利益可以成为戒烟政策的一部分。我们从公共利益和公共利益的伦理角度来探讨这场辩论，考虑到鉴于烟草业的欺诈行为以及电子烟使用自由化对公共健康影响的有力、确凿证据的缺乏，合法研究人员如何在权衡其专家意见与验证烟草业资助的研究之间取得平衡。
