BALANCE PROFIT, SERVICE TO POOR, RESEARCH
On Friday, 12 April, the Vatican Press Office
published the Holy Father's English Message to the International
Conference held at Warsaw 5-6 April on "Conflict of Interest and
its Significance in Science and Medicine". In his Message to
Archbishop Kowalczyk, apostolic Nuncio in Poland, the Holy Father warned
against the risk of research that is based solely on economic interests
to the detriment of the dignity of the human person. "While it is
certainly proper for a firm in the field of biomedical or pharmaceutical
research to seek an appropriate return on investment, it sometimes
happens that overriding financial interests prompt decisions and
products which are contrary to truly human values and to the demands of
justice...." The Pope asked governments to be vigilant in
protecting the common good. "Public authorities too, as guardians
of the common good, have a role to play in ensuring that research is
direct to the good of people and of society, and in tempering and
reconciling the pressures of divergent interests...." The Pope has
been raising concerns about the risk of science degenerating into an
efficient financial enterprise devoid of any notion of serving the
common good of people (cf. The Holy Father to
Polish Universities).
To The Most Reverend Józef Kowalczyk
Apostolic Nuncio in Poland
I am pleased to learn that you will be present at the International Conference
to be held at Warsaw on 5 - 6 April 2002 on the theme: “Conflict of Interest
and its Significance in Science and Medicine”, and I ask you kindly to convey
my heartfelt best wishes to the organizers and participants. The subject of
the Conference is well worth bringing to the attention of society as a whole. In
fact, this is a question which affects not just the programming and development
of medical research and science, but the well-being of peoples and the very
dignity and prestige of scientific learning itself. In recent times the
issue has emerged as one of the most serious ethical problems facing the
international community.
In advanced societies, research, and specifically biomedical research, is one of
the most far-reaching and dynamic fields of innovation and progress, drawing
investment both from public bodies and from private groups, often of a
multinational character.
Conflict between economic interests and the human service
of medicine and health care
While it is certainly proper for a firm in the field of biomedical or
pharmaceutical research to seek an appropriate return on investment, it
sometimes happens that overriding financial interests prompt decisions and
products which are contrary to truly human values and to the demands of justice,
demands which cannot be separated from the very aim of research. As a result, a
conflict can arise between economic interests on the one hand and, on the other,
medicine and health-care. Research in this field must be pursued for the good of
all, including those without means.
In other words, there is a risk that science-based businesses and health care
structures can be set up not in order to provide the best possible care for
people in accordance with their human dignity, but in order to maximize profits
and increase business, with a predictable lowering in the quality of service for
those unable to pay.
In this way there is created in the field of science and medicine a conflict of
interest between the investigation and correct treatment of illnesses—which
is what scientific and medical research is all about—and the financial
objective of making a profit.
Products contrary to moral good, separate marital intimacy
from conception, abortifacients
Today this conflict is obvious in a number of specific ways. First of all,
it can be seen in the selection of research programmes, where those programmes
which hold out the promise of a quick profit are often preferred to other
research which involves higher costs and a greater investment of time because it
respects the demands of ethics and justice. Driven by the pursuit of profit
and catering to what could be called “the medicine of desires”, the
pharmaceutical industry has favoured research which has already placed on the
world market products contrary to the moral good, including products which are
not respectful of procreation and even suppress human life already
conceived.
Adult cells vs. embryonic stem cells
Even as biomedical research continues to perfect methods of artificial human
fertilization, little funding and little research is directed to the prevention
and treatment of infertility. The recent decision in some countries to use
human embryos or even to produce or clone them in order to harvest stem-cells
for therapeutic purposes has the backing of large investors. Yet ethically
acceptable and scientifically valid programmes using adult cells for the same
therapies, with no less success, draws little support because lower profits are
anticipated.
Priorities for pharmaceutical research drugs for hedonistic
purposes vs. 'orphan drugs' needed for deadly diseases
Another example of such conflict of interest is the way in which priorities are
set for pharmaceutical research. In developed countries, for instance, huge
sums are spent on producing medicines that serve hedonistic purposes, or in
marketing different brands of already available and equally effective medicines;
while in poorer areas of the world drugs are not available for the treatment of
devastating and deadly diseases. In these countries access to even the most
basic medicines is almost impossible because the profit motive is absent.
Likewise, in the case of certain uncommon diseases the industry offers no
financial support for research and the production of medicines, because there is
no prospect of profits: these are the so-called “orphan drugs”.
Interested groups control publishing of research results
vs. ethics of research
The very ethics of research can be undermined by the conflict of interest of
which we are speaking, as for example when financial groups claim the right to
permit the publication of research data depending on whether or not such data
are in the interest of the groups themselves.
Even medical care in hospitals is increasingly subject to the imperatives of
cost-containment. Although it is right to avoid waste in health care
administration and in treatment, it is not right to deny proper care or permit
the level of treatment to be lowered for the sake of greater financial
profits.
Media outlets financed by business can spawn a kind of
pharmacological consumerism
The list of such conflicts will undoubtedly expand, if a utilitarian approach is
allowed to prevail over the genuine quest for knowledge. This is what happens
for example when the media, often financed by the same business interests, provoke
exaggerated expectations and spawn a kind of pharmacological consumerism. At the
same time they tend to pass over in silence those means of protecting health
which require people to act responsibly and with self-discipline.
Ethical values are need in science for true independence of
science
For science to retain its true independence and for researchers to retain their
freedom, ethical values must be brought to the fore. To subject everything to
profit involves a real loss of freedom for the scientist. And those who would
uphold scientific freedom by appealing to a “values-free science” prepare
the way for the supremacy of economic interests.
In a broader view, the pre-eminence of the profit motive in conducting
scientific research ultimately means that science is deprived of its
epistemological character, according to which its primary goal is discovery of
the truth. The risk is that when research takes a utilitarian turn, its
speculative dimension, which is the inner dynamic of man’s intellectual
journey, will be diminished or stifled.
Priority of ethics over technology, of the person over
things, economics
For scientific research in the biomedical field to be restored to its full
dignity, researchers themselves must be fully engaged. It is primarily up to
them to guard jealously and, if necessary, to reclaim the essential meaning of
that mastery and dominion over the visible world which the Creator entrusted to
man as a task and duty. As I wrote in my first Encyclical Letter Redemptor
Hominis, this meaning “consists in the priority of ethics over technology,
in the primacy of the person over things, and in the superiority of spirit over
matter” (No. 16). Consequently, I added, “all phases of present-day
progress must be followed attentively. Each stage of that progress must, so
to speak, be x-rayed from this point of view” (ibid.).
Public authorities have to ensure that research will serve
the good of person and society
Public authorities too, as guardians of the common good, have a role to play in
ensuring that research is directed to the good of people and of society, and in
tempering and reconciling the pressures of divergent interests. By issuing
guidelines and by allocating public funds in accordance with the principles of
subsidiarity, they should actively support those fields of research not
sponsored by private interests. They should be prepared to prevent research
which harms human life and dignity or which ignores the needs of the world’s
poorest peoples, who are generally less well equipped for scientific research.
In offering good wishes for the success of this important Conference, I wish to
reaffirm that the Church looks to scientists and researchers with hope and
trust. In this sense I renew the invitation which I addressed to Catholic
intellectuals in my Encyclical Letter Evangelium
Vitae, and I extend it
to all researchers of good will: may you “be present and active in the
leading centres where culture is formed, in schools and universities, in places
of scientific and technological research”, deeply committed to being “at the
service of a new culture of life by offering serious and well documented
contributions, capable of commanding general respect and interest by reason of
their merit” (No. 98). It is in virtue of this broad vision of commitment
to the truth and the common good that medical research and learning have written
pages of genuine advancement, deserving of humanity’s recognition and
gratitude.
With these thoughts, I invoke Almighty God’s assistance upon the work of the
Conference and I cordially impart my blessing to all those taking part.
From the Vatican, 25 March 2002
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