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# Don’t Consider Conflict of Interest Policies in Isolation: Professor
- URL: https://www.fdaweb.com/dont-consider-conflict-of-interest-policies-in-isolation-professor/
- Published: 2026-03-26T12:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-09-14T13:36:14.000Z
- Author: David McFarland
- Tags: FDA Policy/General, Drugs, Devices, #legacy-id-D5160882

University of Southern California Price School of Public Policy associate professor **Genevieve Kanter** says policymakers should consider conflict of interest policies to be part of a broader strategy of building public trust by being more trustworthy as an agency. “This includes providing comprehensive scientific justification for decisions, being transparent about how decisions are made, being transparent about meetings with industry, and enforcing existing rules, as well as making collection of data on conflicts of interest and their impact on a routine and transparent part of advisory committee meetings,” Kanter [says](https://priceschool.usc.edu/news/fda-conflicts-interest-rfk-industry-influence/?ref=fdaweb.com) in an online interview.

“That way we can have evidence-based policies, not only in relation to science, but also in relation to conflicts of interest.”

Kanter says her research has found that about one-third of government appointees from HHS take jobs in private industry within two years after leaving their government roles. And about 15% of government staff worked in industry before their appointment. “This is not necessarily a bad thing,” she says, “but it is something that we might want to look at more carefully in terms of conflict of interest and how that affects government decision-making.”

Responding to a question, she said she is skeptical that efforts by HHS secretary **Robert F. Kennedy Jr.** to remove all conflicts of interest from HHS advisory committees will improve public trust in HHS agencies, including FDA. “A big reason,” she says, “is there’s this huge gap between what the public says it wants — that is, no industry influence in government decision-making — and how the government approaches conflicts of interest…. Within FDA, a conflict of interest would be defined as: Do you have a current relationship with the manufacturer of the drug that’s being discussed, and is your relationship related to that specific product?”

A more dramatic policy shift, she says, would be to eliminate even broader conflicts of interest. She said it’s much harder to do, and it’s also much more likely to affect a broader range of experts. “We may be concerned about some possible downsides if we take that approach,” she says. “Even though that seems to be what the public would like to do — eliminate industry influence — there are some trade-offs here. For example, there has been at least one study showing that external experts do seem to have more expertise, if you measure by research citations, than individuals who don’t work on these committees. I would also be concerned about particular health areas where we don’t have a lot of researchers, such as rare diseases. So, if we take a more stringent approach, we may be excluding a majority of people who work in that area.”