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Full-Text Articles in Law
Biased Advice, Christopher Robertson
Biased Advice, Christopher Robertson
Faculty Scholarship
The modern capitalist society, characterized by decentralized decision making and increasingly sophisticated products and services, turns on relationships of epistemic reliance, where laypersons depend upon advisors to guide their most important decisions. Yet many of those advisors lack real expertise and may be biased by conflicting interests. In such situations, laypersons are likely to make suboptimal decisions that sometimes aggregate into systematic failures, from soaring health care costs to market crashes. Regulators can attempt to manage the symptoms and worst abuses, but the fundamental problem of biased advice will remain. There are many potential policy solutions, from outright bans on …
The Money Blind: How To Stop Industry Bias In Biomedical Science, Without Violating The First Amendment, Christopher Robertson
The Money Blind: How To Stop Industry Bias In Biomedical Science, Without Violating The First Amendment, Christopher Robertson
Faculty Scholarship
The pharmaceutical and medical device industries use billions of dollars to support the biomedical science that physicians, regulators, and patients use to make healthcare decisions—the decisions that drive an increasingly large portion of the American economy. Compelling evidence suggests that this industry money buys favorable results, biasing the outcomes of scientific research. Current efforts to manage the problem, including disclosure mandates and peer reviews, are ineffective. A blinding mechanism, operating through an intermediary such as the National Institutes of Health, could instead be developed to allow industry support of science without allowing undue influence. If the editors of biomedical journals …