Beware Industry-Funded Researchers on Drugs

by Diane Farsetta — April 12, 2006 - 10:05am

prescription pills "Whichever company sponsors the trial produces the better antipsychotic drug," researchers concluded in an American Journal of Psychiatry article. Psychiatrist John Davis and colleagues "analyzed every publicly available trial funded by the pharmaceutical industry pitting five new antipsychotic drugs against one another." Not surprisingly, "nine in 10" trials claimed that "the best drug was the one made by the company funding the study." Often, the problem is not outright fabrication. Some industry-funded studies "use too low a dose of a competitor's drug, while others choose statistical techniques that show their drug in the best light." Davis estimated "that 90 percent of industry-sponsored studies that boast a prominent academic as the lead author are conducted by a company that later enlists a university researcher as the 'author.'" Davis told the Washington Post that in such cases, "the whole entire paper from start to finish is an advertisement."

Main Source:

Washington Post, April 12, 2006

Comments

Drug research and conflict of interest

Submitted by FreeDem on April 24, 2006 - 11:37pm.

Time was that the Government approved drugs based on its own research. The Republicans, ever on the hunt to complain about paying for honest cops, made a big deal about how such research was wasting taxpayers money. The Big drug companies could do it without charging the taxpayers anything. So government Research was defunded, and the Drug companies got a chance to spin the research how they wanted.

Now that prices are way over the top, the same Drug companies are saying that they have to charge outrageous prices (to Americans only) to fund all that research.

So we get Biased research and still pay for it, but those anti-tax folk are nowhere to be seen.suprise suprise.

Future folk will look back and wonder "What were those people thinking? Wasn't anyone minding the store?"