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“Yesterday (Wednesday) at a press conference organized by business representatives, three researchers from the Vilnius University, Vita Karpuškienė, Aušrytė Rastenienė and Algirdas Bartkus, presented the results of another supposedly independent study. Both during the press conference and in the publicly announced information, the essential circumstances of the investigation, which are the initiators, clients and funders of the investigation, have been largely omitted. There is a lot of indirect evidence that the study was started and carried out precisely because of the participation and support of the Lithuanian alcohol industry. If this is confirmed and the research is actually funded by the directly interested alcohol industry, then carrying out such research and the non-public declaration of this circumstance would be a fundamental violation of academic ethics, and at the same time raise fundamental doubts about the research methodology and the data obtained ”, says A. Kubilienė.
SRK has data that the Vilna University Faculty of Economics and Business Administration has a cooperation agreement with the Lithuanian Business Confederation, on the basis of which this research is being carried out.
However, the content of this contract, the terms and extent of investigator funding are not disclosed, and the personal interest of investigators and other subcontractors conducting the investigation is not publicly stated. This casts doubt on what really shapes the research questions, prepares the data collection methodology, interprets the results obtained. If business representatives are also involved in these processes, the researchers’ personal financial incentives may be viewed as a material conflict of interest between the research and its findings, which should be disclosed and consequently warned about its impact on the results. That has not been done.
According to A. Kubilienė, the University of Vilnius must responsibly investigate and evaluate the circumstances of the ongoing investigation, which can affect the quality of the investigation and at the same time diminish the authority of the entire scientific community. Furthermore, since the VU Code of Academic Ethics clearly establishes that community members must adhere to academic integrity and duly declare their potential conflicts of interest.
“As you can see from the media reports, the public interpretation of the study provided by the study authors refers only to the fact that business representatives (Lithuanian Business Confederation) only funded (!) The population survey. No However, it is not specified that the members It is also not stated that the business representatives themselves finance the activities of the researchers themselves, pay for the publicity and dissemination of the research.
There should be an open and transparent debate on all health problems, with the right of all interested parties. However, attempts to rely on an allegedly independent investigation into such discussion without declaring actual clients and potential conflicts of interest are inconsistent with this. At the same time, there are fundamental doubts about the methodology chosen for this study and the suitability of the researchers. This not only degrades the authority of the scientific community, but also forces us to automatically reject the arguments provided by participants as dishonest in the public debate as incompetent and not resistant to academic criticism, “says A. Kubilienė.
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