Corruption can take various forms, including frank bribery and the corruption of knowledge. Prominent in the health field is corruption associated with the pharmaceutical industry. This can impair true freedom to choose optimal therapeutic strategies by misrepresenting less qualified yet more expensive (“pseudo-innovative”) products, resulting in increased expenditures without improvement in th...

"Petty corruption and honesty in all health care systems" is the original title of one of the bioethics networks within the worldwide study projects of the International Association of Bioethics. As the coordinator of this network, it still puzzles me why the word "petty" is in the title when in the past few years-through interviews and questionnaires involving 18 countries-it has become eviden...

OBJECTIVES Few studies have systematically examined the effects of the existing regulations for alleviating corruption in China. This study assesses the effectiveness of China's reforms to curb medical corruption. METHODS We used mixed methods for the evaluation of existing countermeasures. First, qualitative informant interviews based on the Donabedian model were conducted to obtain experts'...

While various forms of corruption are common in many health systems around the world, defining wrongdoing in terms of legality and the use of public office for private gain obstructs our understanding of its nature and intractability. To address this, I suggest, we must not only break the silence about the extent of wrongdoing in the health sector, but also talk differe...

BACKGROUND Smoking prevention should be a primary public health priority for all governments, and effective preventive policies have been identified for decades. The heterogeneity of smoking prevalence between European Union (EU) Member States therefore reflects, at least in part, a failure by governments to prioritise public health over tobacco industry or possibly other financial interests, a...