Three years ago, a German-American research team revealed in the journal Circulation that garlic powder, in tablet form, seemed to help prevent hardening of the aorta, the artery that carries blood to the heart. The finding was a plausible one. Garlic - as part of the celebrated Mediterranean diet - has consistently been linked to lower levels of heart disease. It was nevertheless a help to be told that the research was funded by Lichtwer Pharma GmbH, which manufactures standardised garlic pills in Berlin. It meant that the result could be taken with just a pinch of garlic salt.

Last week Nature, the titan of science journals, announced that from October 1 it will expect all its authors to declare "any competing financial interests" with the research papers they submit. This is a welcome and probably inevitable decision. Science is intimately linked with industry: it is part of the machinery of wealth. So scientists go to agribusiness to finance research into plant science or genetic engineering; they go to pharmaceutical companies to back pioneering studies of promising molecules; they go to physics industries to finance experiments that could end with ever more amazing technology. And, increasingly, the scientists themselves are involved in start-up companies, the cash-generating, research-financing enterprises of tomorrow. Don't blame the scientists: blame the system. Successive governments have declared that science is intimately linked with national wealth. Conservative governments, in particular, found ever more cavalier ways of forcing academic scientists to tout for funds from industry. But there is always the suspicion that those who pay the piper have the power to call the tune. Or, to put it another way, it is hard to imagine that particular German-American research team reporting that garlic powder tablets make no significant difference to heart health (which would have been an equally plausible outcome). But scientists who really do inhabit ivory towers, using money only from the taxpayer, whose only obligation is to provide a result, would have no such inhibition.

Science is a word that derives from the Latin scire, to know. If people are aware who pays for this knowledge, and who will benefit most from it, they will also know how best to value it. Such frankness will help the scientist as much as the consumer. People with nothing to hide have everything to gain.