Drug Trials by Authors With Pharma Ties More Often Positive

[MarkS]

This study has found that drug trials run by investigators who have financial ties with drug makers are over 3 times more likely to report positive results than those without such ties:

medscape.com/viewarticle/87...

It recommends publishing all data for independent analysis before publication.

[Finvola]

Thanks for the link MarkS - why am I not at all surprised?

[Jans5]

Most large scale drug trials are funded by drug companies as are a lot of websites. I did a module during my degree course which highlighted the issue. I now look at the small print to see if a drug company is involved and whether they would benefit by the findings ie more drug sales. I then accept that they've probably overstated their findings which is easy to do when you're dealing with statistics.

[Goldfish_]

What a surprise! There is now a trials register. This means that negative trials are not just buried as happened previously.

This was interesting with ezetemibe trials that failed to show any reduction in mortality or morbidity despite reducing cholesterol and improving coronary artery plaques.

[BobD Volunteer]

really can't understand that. ha ha.