Policy Tag: Publication

Adopted by the 60th WMA General Assembly, New Delhi, India, October 2009
Reaffirmed with minor revision by the 201st WMA Council Session, Moscow, Russia, October 2015,
and revised by the 76th WMA General Assembly, Porto, Portugal, October 2025

 

PREAMBLE

This policy is intended to identify areas where a conflict of interest might occur during the day-to-day practice of medicine, and to assist physicians in resolving such conflicts in the best interests of their patients. A conflict of interest arises when professional judgement concerning direct patient care might be unduly influenced by secondary interests. Factors such as mandatory institutional requirements or career advancement pressures could represent conflicts of interest.

As stated in the WMA’s International Code of Medical Ethics, the physician must recognize and avoid real or potential conflicts of interest.

In some cases, it may be enough for a physician to acknowledge that a potential or perceived conflict exists. In others, specific steps to resolve the conflict may be required. Some conflicts of interest are inevitable and there is nothing inherently unethical in the occurrence of conflicts of interest in medicine, but it is the manner in which they are addressed that is crucial.

In addition to practicing medicine and providing direct patient care, physicians serve in additional roles and pursue various other interests, such as participating in research, contributing to seminars and conferences, training and educating future physicians and occupying administrative or managerial positions. As private interests within medicine have expanded in many locales, physicians have occasionally provided their expertise to these endeavors as well, acting as consultants (and sometimes employees) for private enterprises, including those involved in the development of new technologies and digital solutions.

The growing interaction between physicians and private sector stakeholders reflects the broader systemic influence of these private interests on healthcare markets, clinical practice, research priorities, and medical education. These factors are also referred to as commercial determinants of health.

Although the participation of physicians in such activities can ultimately serve the greater public good, it can also give rise to conflicts with their primary obligation to the health and well-being of their individual patients, as well as broader public health needs. Other interests must not be allowed to influence clinical decision-making or even have the potential to do so.

Physicians have a moral duty to scrutinize their own individual behavior for any potential conflicts of interest. If unacknowledged, conflicts of interest can seriously undermine patient trust in the medical profession as well as in the individual practitioner and therefore negatively impact the patient-physician relationship. Any conflict of interest, be it real or potential, financial or personal, including relational conflicts of interest, should be disclosed. Depending on the circumstances, additional remediation may be necessary.

Physicians may also wish to consult additional resources such as specialty societies, medical associations or regulatory authorities on issues relating to conflicts of interest, and they should be aware of applicable national regulations and laws.

The WMA unambiguously addresses the issue of conflicts of interest in its fundamental ethical policies, including the Declaration of Geneva: The Physician’s Pledge, the International Code of Medical Ethics, and the Declaration of Helsinki. These core documents make it clear that the health and well-being of the patient or research participant must always be the physician’s first consideration.

 

RECOMMENDATIONS

Research

1. The interests of the clinician and the researcher may not be the same. If the same individual is assuming both roles, as is often the case, the potential conflict should be addressed by ensuring that appropriate steps are put in place to protect the patient, including disclosure of the potential conflict to the patient.

2. Medical research must be conducted ultimately for the advancement of individual and public health. A physician-researcher may never place financial interests above the welfare of patients. Patient health and well-being and scientific integrity must be paramount.

3. All relevant and material physician-researcher relationships, sources of funding, institutional affiliations, and conflicts of interests must be disclosed to potential research participants, research ethics committees, appropriate regulatory oversight bodies, medical journals, conference participants and the medical centre where the research is conducted.

4. Prior to commencement of any research, all parties involved in the research including trial sponsors, the physician-researcher and research participants, should agree to key terms and conditions relating to, at a minimum:

• financial compensation for the physician-researcher,
• control of and access to research results,
• the right and obligation of the physician-researcher to publish negative results,
• the right of the physician-researcher to release relevant information to trial participants at any point during the study,
• funding for participants’ medical care in the event of complications associated with the research,
• data protection and incidental findings.

5. Physician-researchers should retain control of and should have full access to all trial data and should decline non-disclosure clauses.

6. Physician-researchers should ensure that, regardless of the trial results, the presentation or publication of the results will not be unduly delayed or otherwise obstructed.

7. Physicians should not accept payment or other benefits solely for referring patients to research studies or for sharing patient data. Patient information should only be shared with due regard for patient confidentiality and data safety.

8. Any compensation received by physician-researchers from trial sponsors should approximately replace lost clinical income and should be commensurate with the efforts and responsibilities of the physician performing the research. When enrolment is particularly challenging and time-consuming, reasonable additional payments may be made to compensate physician-researcher or institution specifically for time and effort spent on extra recruiting efforts to enroll appropriate research participants. Escalating bonuses designed to increase trial enrolment should not be accepted.

9. Payments or compensation of any sort may never be tied to the outcome of clinical trials. Physician-researchers should not have a financial interest in a company sponsoring a trial or a product being studied in a clinical trial if this financial interest could be affected positively or negatively by the results of the trial; they should have no direct financial stake in the results of the trial. They should not purchase, buy or sell stock (shares) in the company while the trial is ongoing and until the results have been made public. This might not apply for those physicians who have developed a medication but are not part of the enrolment process.

10. Physician-researchers should decline requests to review grant applications or research paper submissions from colleagues or competitors if their relationship poses a risk to impartiality.

11. Physician-researchers should only participate in clinical trials when they relate to their area of medical expertise, and they should have the appropriate ethical and scientific education, training and qualifications in the conduct of research and the principles of research ethics.

12. Authorship should be determined prior to the start of the trial and should be based on substantive scientific contribution.

13. Physician-researchers should be aware of broader commercial determinants of health that may influence research priorities, study design, and the interpretation or dissemination of results, and should actively seek to mitigate such influences to preserve scientific integrity and public trust.

Education and training

14. The educational needs of students and physicians in specialty training and the quality of their education and training experience must be balanced with the best interests of patients. Where these are in conflict, the interests of patients will take precedence.

15. Basic medical education, specialty training, and continuing professional development (CME/CPD) should include specific training on recognizing and managing conflicts of interest, as well as understanding commercial determinants of health, to support critical appraisal of information and uphold professional integrity in the best interests of patients.

Self-referrals , kickbacks, and fee-splitting

16. All referrals to other physicians or providers, and prescriptions for specific goods or services, should be based on the objective assessment of the referring or prescribing physician. Any form of collaboration among health professionals must prioritize the interests of the patient.

17. Physician self-referral occurs when a physician refers a patient to a service, practice, or health care facility (such as a laboratory) where they do not engage in professional activities but in which they have a financial interest. This practice has the potential to significantly influence clinical decision-making and is not generally considered acceptable unless there are appropriate safeguards in place and the referral is based on objective, medically relevant criteria. (For example, there is a need for the facility in a small rural community and other ownership is not a possibility. The physician in this situation should receive no more financial interest than would an ordinary investor.)

18. Kickbacks or fee-splitting occur when a physician receives financial consideration for referring a patient to a specific practitioner or for a specific service for which a fee is charged. These practices are not acceptable.

Product sales

19. Physician sale of medical products (health-related products), or of non-medical products (products not related to patient health or the practice of medicine), from their office or website may raises ethical concerns about financial conflict of interest and may risks placing undue pressure on the patient. Non-medical products and scientifically non-validated medical products should not be sold from physicians’ offices or websites. Sales of scientifically validated medical products are acceptable only in limited circumstances with appropriate safeguards, including appropriate disclosure to the patient.

Organizational/institutional conflicts

20. Health care institutions, in particular, are increasingly subject to a number of pressures that threaten several of their roles, and many medical centers have begun to identify alternate sources of revenue. Policies should be in place to ensure that these new sources are not in conflict with the values and mission of the institution and with medical ethical principles (for example, funding from the tobacco, food, or pharmaceutical industries in medical schools or clinics).

21. Individual medical organisations and institutions (including, but not limited to, medical schools, hospitals, medical associations, official/state regulators and research institutions) should develop and enforce conflict of interest guidelines which also apply to their employees and members, and which also address the broader commercial determinants of health. Such guidelines should be structured to assist physicians in making appropriate disclosures and identifying situations where a conflict of interest would preclude their participation in a given activity.

22. Health care institutions should have a clear demarcation between investment decision-making committees, technology transfer and the research arm of the institution.

23. Written policies should provide guidelines for disclosure requirements, or for discontinuing participation in the decision-making process, for those individuals who are conflicted due to sponsored research, consulting agreements, private holdings or licensing agreements.

Adopted by the 18th WMA General Assembly, Helsinki, Finland, June 1964
and amended by the:
29th WMA General Assembly, Tokyo, Japan, October 1975
35th WMA General Assembly, Venice, Italy, October 1983
41st WMA General Assembly, Hong Kong, September 1989
48th WMA General Assembly, Somerset West, Republic of South Africa, October 1996
52nd WMA General Assembly, Edinburgh, Scotland, October 2000
53rd WMA General Assembly, Washington DC, USA, October 2002 (Note of Clarification added)
55th WMA General Assembly, Tokyo, Japan, October 2004 (Note of Clarification added)
59th WMA General Assembly, Seoul, Republic of Korea, October 2008
64th WMA General Assembly, Fortaleza, Brazil, October 2013
and by the 75th WMA General Assembly, Helsinki, Finland, October 2024

 

PREAMBLE

  1. The World Medical Association (WMA) has developed the Declaration of Helsinki as a statement of ethical principles for medical research involving human participants, including research using identifiable human material or data.

The Declaration is intended to be read as a whole, and each of its constituent paragraphs should be applied with consideration of all other relevant paragraphs.

  1. While the Declaration is adopted by physicians, the WMA holds that these principles should be upheld by all individuals, teams, and organizations involved in medical research, as these principles are fundamental to respect for and protection of all research participants, including both patients and healthy volunteers.

 

GENERAL PRINCIPLES

  1. The WMA Declaration of Geneva binds the physician with the words, “The health and well-being of my patient will be my first consideration,” and the WMA International Code of Medical Ethics declares “The physician must commit to the primacy of patient health and well-being and must offer care in the patient’s best interest.”
  1. It is the duty of the physician to promote and safeguard the health, well-being and rights of patients, including those who are involved in medical research. The physician’s knowledge and conscience are dedicated to the fulfilment of this duty.
  1. Medical progress is based on research that ultimately must include participants.

Even well-proven interventions should be evaluated continually through research for their safety, effectiveness, efficiency, accessibility, and quality.

  1. Medical research involving human participants is subject to ethical standards that promote and ensure respect for all participants and protect their health and rights.

Since medical research takes place in the context of various structural inequities, researchers should carefully consider how the benefits, risks, and burdens are distributed.

Meaningful engagement with potential and enrolled participants and their communities should occur before, during, and following medical research. Researchers should enable potential and enrolled participants and their communities to share their priorities and values; to participate in research design, implementation, and other relevant activities; and to engage in understanding and disseminating results.

  1. The primary purpose of medical research involving human participants is to generate knowledge to understand the causes, development and effects of diseases; improve preventive, diagnostic and therapeutic interventions; and ultimately to advance individual and public health.

These purposes can never take precedence over the rights and interests of individual research participants.

  1. While new knowledge and interventions may be urgently needed during public health emergencies, it remains essential to uphold the ethical principles in this Declaration during such emergencies.
  1. It is the duty of physicians who are involved in medical research to protect the life, health, dignity, integrity, autonomy, privacy, and confidentiality of personal information of research participants. The responsibility for the protection of research participants must always rest with physicians or other researchers and never with the research participants, even though they have given consent.
  1. Physicians and other researchers must consider the ethical, legal and regulatory norms and standards for research involving human participants in the country or countries in which the research originated and where it is to be performed, as well as applicable international norms and standards. No national or international ethical, legal or regulatory requirement should reduce or eliminate any of the protections for research participants set forth in this Declaration.
  1. Medical research should be designed and conducted in a manner that avoids or minimizes harm to the environment and strives for environmental sustainability.
  1. Medical research involving human participants must be conducted only by individuals with the appropriate ethics and scientific education, training and qualifications. Such research requires the supervision of a competent and appropriately qualified physician or other researcher.

Scientific integrity is essential in the conduct of medical research involving human participants. Involved individuals, teams, and organizations must never engage in research misconduct.

  1. Groups that are underrepresented in medical research should be provided appropriate access to participation in research.
  1. Physicians who combine medical research with medical care should involve their patients in research only to the extent that this is justified by its potential preventive, diagnostic or therapeutic value and if the physician has good reason to believe that participation in the research will not adversely affect the health of the patients who serve as research participants.
  1. Appropriate compensation and treatment for participants who are harmed as a result of participating in research must be ensured.

Risks, Burdens, and Benefits

  1. In medical practice and in medical research, most interventions involve risks and burdens.

Medical research involving human participants may only be conducted if the importance of the objective outweighs the risks and burdens to the research participants.

  1. All medical research involving human participants must be preceded by careful assessment of predictable risks and burdens to the individuals and groups involved in the research in comparison with foreseeable benefits to them and to other individuals or groups affected by the condition under investigation.

Measures to minimize the risks and burdens must be implemented. The risks and burdens must be continuously monitored, assessed, and documented by the researcher.

  1. Physicians and other researchers may not engage in research involving human participants unless they are confident that the risks and burdens have been adequately assessed and can be satisfactorily managed.

When the risks and burdens are found to outweigh the potential benefits or when there is conclusive proof of definitive outcomes, physicians and other researchers must assess whether to continue, modify or immediately stop the research.

Individual, Group, and Community Vulnerability

  1. Some individuals, groups, and communities are in a situation of more vulnerability as research participants due to factors that may be fixed or contextual and dynamic, and thus are at greater risk of being wronged or incurring harm. When such individuals, groups, and communities have distinctive health needs, their exclusion from medical research can potentially perpetuate or exacerbate their disparities. Therefore, the harms of exclusion must be considered and weighed against the harms of inclusion. In order to be fairly and responsibly included in research, they should receive specifically considered support and protections.
  1. Medical research with individuals, groups, or communities in situations of particular vulnerability is only justified if it is responsive to their health needs and priorities and the individual, group, or community stands to benefit from the resulting knowledge, practices, or interventions. Researchers should only include those in situations of particular vulnerability when the research cannot be carried out in a less vulnerable group or community, or when excluding them would perpetuate or exacerbate their disparities.

Scientific Requirements and Research Protocols

  1. Medical research involving human participants must have a scientifically sound and rigorous design and execution that are likely to produce reliable, valid, and valuable knowledge and avoid research waste. The research must conform to generally accepted scientific principles, be based on a thorough knowledge of the scientific literature, other relevant sources of information, and adequate laboratory and, as appropriate, animal experimentation.

The welfare of animals used for research must be respected.

  1. The design and performance of all medical research involving human participants must be clearly described and justified in a research protocol.

The protocol should contain a statement of the ethical considerations involved and should indicate how the principles in this Declaration have been addressed. The protocol should include information regarding aims, methods, anticipated benefits and potential risks and burdens, qualifications of the researcher, sources of funding, any potential conflicts of interest, provisions to protect privacy and confidentiality, incentives for participants, provisions for treating and/or compensating participants who are harmed as a consequence of participation, and any other relevant aspects of the research.

In clinical trials, the protocol must also describe any post-trial provisions.

Research Ethics Committees

  1. The protocol must be submitted for consideration, comment, guidance, and approval to the concerned research ethics committee before the research begins. This committee must be transparent in its functioning and must have the independence and authority to resist undue influence from the researcher, the sponsor, or others. The committee must have sufficient resources to fulfill its duties, and its members and staff must collectively have adequate education, training, qualifications, and diversity to effectively evaluate each type of research it reviews.

The committee must have sufficient familiarity with local circumstances and context, and include at least one member of the general public.  It must take into consideration the ethical, legal, and regulatory norms and standards of the country or countries in which the research is to be performed as well as applicable international norms and standards, but these must not be allowed to reduce or eliminate any of the protections for research participants set forth in this Declaration.

When collaborative research is performed internationally, the research protocol must be approved by research ethics committees in both the sponsoring and host countries.

The committee must have the right to monitor, recommend changes to, withdraw approval for, and suspend ongoing research.  Where monitoring is required, the researcher must provide information to the committee and/or competent data and safety monitoring entity, especially about any serious adverse events. No amendment to the protocol may be made without consideration and approval by the committee. After the end of the research, the researchers must submit a final report to the committee containing a summary of the findings and conclusions.

Privacy and Confidentiality

  1. Every precaution must be taken to protect the privacy of research participants and the confidentiality of their personal information.

Free and Informed Consent

  1. Free and informed consent is an essential component of respect for individual autonomy. Participation by individuals capable of giving informed consent in medical research must be voluntary. Although it may be appropriate to consult family members or community representatives, individuals capable of giving informed consent may not be enrolled in research unless they freely agree.
  1. In medical research involving human participants capable of giving informed consent, each potential participant must be adequately informed in plain language of the aims, methods, anticipated benefits and potential risks and burdens, qualifications of the researcher, sources of funding, any potential conflicts of interest, provisions to protect privacy and confidentiality, incentives for participants, provisions for treating and/or compensating participants who are harmed as a consequence of participation, and any other relevant aspects of the research.

The potential participant must be informed of the right to refuse to participate in the research or to withdraw consent to participate at any time without reprisal. Special attention should be given to the specific information and communication needs of individual potential participants as well as to the methods used to deliver the information.

After ensuring that the potential participant has understood the information, the physician or another qualified individual must then seek the potential participant’s freely given informed consent, formally documented on paper or electronically.  If the consent cannot be expressed on paper or electronically, the non-written consent must be formally witnessed and documented.

All medical research participants should be given the option of being informed about the general outcome and results of the research.

  1. When seeking informed consent for participation in research the physician or other researcher must be particularly cautious if the potential participant is in a dependent relationship with them or may consent under duress. In such situations, the informed consent must be sought by an appropriately qualified individual who is independent of this relationship.
  1. In medical research involving human participants incapable of giving free and informed consent, the physician or other qualified individual must seek informed consent from the legally authorized representative, considering preferences and values expressed by the potential participant.

Those persons incapable of giving free and informed consent are in situations of particular vulnerability and are entitled to the corresponding safeguards. In addition to receiving the protections for the particularly vulnerable, those incapable of giving consent must only be included if the research is likely to either personally benefit them or if it entails only minimal risk and minimal burden.

  1. When a potential research participant who is incapable of giving free and informed consent is able to give assent to decisions about participation in research, the physician or other qualified individual must seek that assent in addition to the consent of the legally authorized representative, considering any preferences and values expressed by the potential participant. The potential participant’s dissent should be respected.
  1. Research involving participants who are physically or mentally incapable of giving consent (for example, unconscious patients) may be done only if the physical or mental condition that prevents giving informed consent is a necessary characteristic of the research group. In such circumstances the physician or other qualified individual must seek informed consent from the legally authorized representative. If no such representative is available and if the research cannot be delayed, the research may proceed without informed consent provided that the specific reasons for involving participants with a condition that renders them unable to give informed consent have been stated in the research protocol and the research has been approved by a research ethics committee.

Free and informed consent to remain in the research must be obtained as soon as possible from a legally authorized representative or, if they regain capacity to give consent, from the participant.

  1. The physician or other researcher must fully inform potential participants which aspects of their care are related to the research. The refusal of a patient to participate in research or the patient’s decision to withdraw from research must never adversely affect the patient-physician relationship or provision of the standard of care.
  1. Physicians or other qualified individuals must obtain free and informed consent from research participants for the collection, processing, storage, and foreseeable secondary use of biological material and identifiable or re-identifiable data. Any collection and storage of data or biological material from research participants for multiple and indefinite uses should be consistent with requirements set forth in the WMA Declaration of Taipei, including the rights of individuals and the principles of governance. A research ethics committee must approve the establishment and monitor ongoing use of such databases and biobanks.

Where consent is impossible or impracticable to obtain, secondary research on stored data or biological material may be done only after consideration and approval of a research ethics committee.

Use of Placebo

  1. The benefits, risks, burdens, and effectiveness of a new intervention must be tested against those of the best proven intervention(s), except in the following circumstances:
  • If no proven intervention exists, the use of placebo, or no intervention, is acceptable; or
  • If for compelling and scientifically sound methodological reasons the use of any intervention other than the best proven one(s), the use of placebo, or no intervention is necessary to determine the efficacy or safety of an intervention; and the participants who receive any intervention other than the best proven one(s), placebo, or no intervention will not be subject to additional risks of serious or irreversible harm as a result of not receiving the best proven intervention.

Extreme care must be taken to avoid abuse of this option.

Post-Trial Provisions

  1. In advance of a clinical trial, post-trial provisions must be arranged by sponsors and researchers to be provided by themselves, healthcare systems, or governments for all participants who still need an intervention identified as beneficial and reasonably safe in the trial. Exceptions to this requirement must be approved by a research ethics committee. Specific information about post-trial provisions must be disclosed to participants as part of informed consent.

Research Registration, Publication, and Dissemination of Results

  1. Medical research involving human participants must be registered in a publicly accessible database before recruitment of the first participant.
  1. Researchers, authors, sponsors, editors, and publishers all have ethical obligations with regard to the publication and dissemination of the results of research. Researchers have a duty to make publicly available the results of their research on human participants and are accountable for the timeliness, completeness, and accuracy of their reports. All parties should adhere to accepted guidelines for ethical reporting. Negative and inconclusive as well as positive results must be published or otherwise made publicly available. Sources of funding, institutional affiliations, and conflicts of interest must be declared in the publication. Reports of research not in accordance with the principles of this Declaration should not be accepted for publication.

Unproven Interventions in Clinical Practice

  1. When an unproven intervention is utilized in an attempt to restore health or alleviate suffering for an individual patient because approved options are inadequate or ineffective and enrollment in a clinical trial is not possible, it should subsequently be made the object of research designed to evaluate safety and efficacy. Physicians participating in such interventions must first seek expert advice, weigh possible risks, burdens, and benefits, and obtain informed consent. They must also record and share data when appropriate and avoid compromising clinical trials. These interventions must never be undertaken to circumvent the protections for research participants set forth in this Declaration.

 

Disclaimer: ©2024 World Medical Association. All Rights Reserved. All intellectual property rights in the Declaration of Helsinki are vested in the World Medical Association. The WMA has granted JAMA exclusive rights to publish the English-language version of the Declaration through December 31, 2024.