To the Editor: A recent editorial in the Journal focused on the "blurring of research ideals and corporate interests".1 But there are other funding and commissioning bodies, including government, whose wants or needs also have the potential to blur research ideals and exert control over what can be published. In recent times, those who pay the piper increasingly want to call the tune. Understandably, this is also an issue for research into Aboriginal ill health.2,3 Van Der Weyden's plea for the development of national guidelines on institutional conflict of interest should therefore be broadened to include all funding bodies.

One suggestion for inclusion in these guidelines, to enhance public interest in research, is an obligation for authors to state not only their sources of funding, but "the origin of the research question they are attempting to answer"4 and the person or group who initiated the funding of the project.