Re: Have You Had Your Yearly Eye Exam?

W.M.McKee <wmmckee@xxxxxxx> wrote:
On 17 Jul 2006 09:41:26 GMT, Chris Malcolm <cam@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

W.M.McKee <wmmckee@xxxxxxx> wrote:
On 16 Jul 2006 10:43:51 GMT, Chris Malcolm <cam@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

In my own minor experiences, which if I believe the gossip of faculty
coffee rooms is far from unusual, some company lawyers will interpret
their brief as stamping out any suggestion in a research publication
that the company's product is less than wonderful, whereas others
interpret their brief as helping the scientists to communicate their
adverse results in such a way as won't excite the paranoia of their
bosses. In the latter case what often motivates this less serious
dedication to the explicit instructions of their employer is the
conflict which can sometimes arise between what your employer wants
you to do and your allegiance to the ethical standards of your
profession.

Hello Chris,

Well, I guess things work differently in a lot of places... Most of
the time, it seems to me that the PR people, and the marketing people
are the one who initially do most of the writeups, with input from the
scientists and production folk. Lawyers do not usually get involved
except as a last cautionary step in the process, unless it is a
contract or licensing matter, or unless there is a
securities/underwriting matter to be pursued, or something having to
do with stockholder relations....

We're clearly talking about different things then: I was talking about
sponsored scientific researcvh where the contract includes submission
of all proposed research publications to the company for approval, and
no publication without approval. That's not an uncommon kind of
contract. Only the research scientists could possibly write the
research papers. I wasn't talking about press releases and so on at
all. I was talking about research papers submitted to scientific
conferences, peer reviewed science journals, etc..

Obviously where company employees or PR contractors are writing stuff
specifically for the company on its instructions there's much less need
for careful scrutiny.

The need for lawyers to do the scrutineering is because of the
possibilities that certain kinds of research results have for
supporting legal action against the company, such as for drug side
effect damages.

--
Chris Malcolm cam@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx DoD #205
IPAB, Informatics, JCMB, King's Buildings, Edinburgh, EH9 3JZ, UK
[http://www.dai.ed.ac.uk/homes/cam/]

.

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