Conflict of Interests in the Scientific Production on Vitamin D and COVID-19: A Scoping Review

Abstract

The use of scientific evidence to support the process of formulating and implementing public policies might be biased by studies funded by the pharmaceutical and food industry, which more often than not meet corporate interests. This review aimed to analyze the occurrence of conflict of interest (COI) in academic production regarding vitamin D and COVID-19, considering the facility offered during the pandemic for academic publications of heterogeneous quality. A scoping review of observational studies published in Medline, Lilacs, and Google Scholar databases was carried out. The selected studies were published between December 2019 and August 2021, focused on the relationship between vitamin D and prevention or treatment of COVID-19 in non-institutionalized individuals, with no language restrictions. Twenty-nine studies met eligibility criteria. COI was disclosed in five papers and further identified by review authors in eight other papers, meaning COI was present in thirteen papers (44.8%). Studies were funded by companies in the diagnostics, pharmaceutical and food sectors. Conclusions favorable to vitamin D supplementation were more prevalent in papers where COI was identified (9/13, 69.2%) than among papers where COI was not found (4/16, 25.0%). Omissions of disclosure of COI, funding source, and sponsor functions were observed. The identification of possible corporate political activities in scientific papers about vitamin D published during the COVID-19 pandemic signals a need for greater transparency and guideline development on the prevention of COI in scientific production.

Corporate activities that influence population health: A scoping review and qualitative synthesis to develop the HEALTH-CORP typology

“…Corporations were accused of promoting excessive consumption of harmful products, for example, by engaging in intensive and highly-resourced marketing campaigns that normalize their consumption (e.g., portraying alcohol as part of a normal everyday routine [84]) [12,18,36,42,47,51,63,65,72–74,84–99]. They were reported to influence the public debate about product related-risks by reframing and creating uncertainty about the causes of health issues (e.g., focusing on genetic causes of cancer as opposed to alcohol consumption [100]) [18,20,27,28,31,32,34,36,37,40–42,44,46,48,50–52,56–58,64,65,75,76,79,81,101–104] and acquiring or funding media companies, making it more difficult for public health messages to be heard [20,45,48,49,65,72]. Though commercial entities promoted education as the solution to managing health-related risks [20,45,51,58,66,68,74,80], they were also accused of attempting to shape the public’s understanding of health issues by providing educational resources that promoted their products and/or downplayed the associated health risks (e.g., alcohol [61,62]) [19,20,36,51,63,65,68,80,84,100].…”

Exploring demographical, clinical, and dietary determinants of vitamin D deficiency among adults in Douala, Cameroon during the COVID-19 era

“…Finally, the authors’ conflicts of interest may also be a great determinant of conclusions. For instance, Passini and colleagues pointed out a positive association between favorable conclusions about the positive effect of vitamin D supplementation on COVID–19 outcomes and the presence of conflicts of interest [ 47 ].…”

Perfil De Intoxicações Pela Utilização De Benzodiazepínicos E Barbitúricos Na Paraíba No Ano De 2020

“…Apesar do coronavírus ser uma doença que pode causar casos mais graves e maior mortalidade em imunossuprimidos (MARIN et al, 2020) e a vitamina D estar entre os nutrientes responsáveis pela regulação imunológica e de processos inflamatórios (PRIETL et al, 2013), até o momento permanece incerto se existe de fato uma relação da vitamina com a prevenção, tratamento ou cura do coronavírus (BASSATNE et al, 2021;ABDRABBO et al, 2021). Na literatura, se tem diversos estudos que mostram uma correlação positiva da vitamina com a enfermidade (BAE et al, 2022;YISAK et al, 2021), porém muitos desses artigos trazem associação positiva com conflitos de interesse consideráveis (PASSINI et al, 2022).…”