ISBNPA 2009 keynote debate: industry sponsorship of scientific societies and scientific research

The closing session of ISBNPA 2009 was the keynote debate. This year Professors Willem van Mechelen of EMGO+ at the VU University Medical Center and David Crawford of C-PAN, Deakin University, Australia debated about industry sponsorship of behavioral nutrition and physical activity research/research society. David Crawford argued against and Willem van Mechelen argued in favour. Professor Knut Inge Klepp of the department of nutrition of University of Oslo chaired the session.
After an introduction by Klepp stating the importantce and relevance of this issue, Van Mechelen started his argument by playing 'The times they are a changing' by Bob Dylan and a hylarious introduction including a reference to Aussie style football; Crawford with a picture of Van Mechelen as a clown. But after that, things got serious. Van Mechelen pointed out that without industry sponsorship we would have far less scientific research, and thus less scientific progress. Basically, he argued that scientists cannot accomplish their goals and cannot meet their performance indicators if they are too restrictive in accepting funding for research. He showed that, with some exceptions, governments in general and the Dutch government in particular are not willing to invest enough in scientific research to help evidence-based practice to progress. He further argued that as long as the process is transparent and the sponsored research is methodological sound, and the right rules regarding the data, scietific independence, disclosure and publications are set, with no publication restrictions, the risks of bias because of industry sponsoring is very low.
Crawford argued that and showed that there is evidence that industry sponsorhips can bias research results, citing, amongst others, Lesser et al's 2007 publication in Plos Medicine. He also argued that perceptions matter: sponsorship by industry may make a scientific society or a sponsored study less credible, among fellow scientists, reviewers, stakeholders as well as the broader community. David's third argument was that industry sponsorhip is no longer common; tobacco industry sponsorship of research is nowadays unheard of, and there is a growing movement against pharmaceutical industry sponsorship. David agreed with Willem that intercation with industry is important, but this should be without financial ties. Basically, David Crawford argued that the cons for accepting industry sponsorship for ISBNPA outweigh the pros.
By the way, in the preparation of the ISBNPA 2009 meeting, the Executive Committee of ISBNPA decided to not accept sponsorship from a large softdrink company for support of the society. ISBNPA 2009 was supported by non-commercial sponsors only.