Conflicts of interest (COIs) are very important considerations in research. The most obvious COIs are financial; the researcher may receive financial gain for one result versus another, or they will at least avoid losing current or future income if they get a specific result. But COIs could also be non-financial. Perhaps they have family or close friends that would prefer one outcome versus another. Or they might hold a volunteer position of authority in the sponsor's organization. Whatever form they take, COIs may not necessarily invalidate a study, they hold the potential to influence scientists' behavior during a study, their analysis of the data, and the conclusions they draw from their research. Sometimes, the researcher may not even be fully aware of the influence of their COIs on their work. Blinding can help reduce the influence of conflicts of interest, but any COIs must be disclosed so that anyone who reads the study can think about how they may have influenced the study design, the methods, the analysis, and the conclusions.
When it comes to published research, most journals require authors to disclose both financial and personal relationships with other organizations or people that could bias their study. Failure to disclose COIs can be grounds for refusal of a manuscript or retraction of a paper that has already been published. It can really damage the researcher's reputation, but it can also harm the reputation of the journal.
This all brings us to a study that was originally published as an uncorrected proof in the journal
Vaccine, and later withdrawn by the journal:
Behavioral abnormalities in young female mice following administration of aluminum adjuvants and the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine Gardasil, by Rotem Inbar, Ronen Weiss, Lucija Tomljenovic, Maria-Teresa Arango, Yael Deri, Christopher A. Shaw, Joab Chapman, Miri Blank, and Yehuda Shoenfeld.
