Fwd: VSL:SCIENCE // Fact-checking big pharma

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From: vsl@...(Very Short List)

DECEMBER 16, 2008

How pharma picks its cherries

 

STUDY

" Reporting Bias in Drug Trials "

We've all suspected that Big Pharma cherry-picks the studies it

publishes and publicizes. Now a paper by a team of researchers at the

University of California, San Francisco, tells us just how widespread

and insidious the practice is.

To win FDA approval for a new medication, pharmaceutical companies must

prove that their drug works better than a placebo. And so, they conduct

randomized efficacy trials in which patients and doctors alike are

" blind. " Such studies can be effective, but the industry routinely

suppresses unflattering results and masks important information — and

is particularly selective about which trials it actually publishes in

journals.

The researchers studied 168 efficacy trials, and they found that drug

companies failed to publish results on 36 (or 22 percent) of them and

omitted important data from many others. Not surprisingly, " the vast

majority " of omissions and discrepancies just happened to favor the

drugs under review. According to Journal of the American Medical

Association deputy editor Drummond Rennie, such selective reporting of

results " is not science " — it's " marketing. "

Read more:

PLoS Medicine - Reporting Bias in Drug Trials Submitted to the Food and

Drug Administration: Review of Publication and Presentation

http://medicine.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-document & doi=10.1371%2Fjo\

urnal.pmed.0050217 & ct=1

[Guest guest]

From: vsl@...(Very Short List)

DECEMBER 16, 2008

How pharma picks its cherries

 

STUDY

" Reporting Bias in Drug Trials "

We've all suspected that Big Pharma cherry-picks the studies it

publishes and publicizes. Now a paper by a team of researchers at the

University of California, San Francisco, tells us just how widespread

and insidious the practice is.

To win FDA approval for a new medication, pharmaceutical companies must

prove that their drug works better than a placebo. And so, they conduct

randomized efficacy trials in which patients and doctors alike are

" blind. " Such studies can be effective, but the industry routinely

suppresses unflattering results and masks important information — and

is particularly selective about which trials it actually publishes in

journals.

The researchers studied 168 efficacy trials, and they found that drug

companies failed to publish results on 36 (or 22 percent) of them and

omitted important data from many others. Not surprisingly, " the vast

majority " of omissions and discrepancies just happened to favor the

drugs under review. According to Journal of the American Medical

Association deputy editor Drummond Rennie, such selective reporting of

results " is not science " — it's " marketing. "

Read more:

PLoS Medicine - Reporting Bias in Drug Trials Submitted to the Food and

Drug Administration: Review of Publication and Presentation

http://medicine.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-document & doi=10.1371%2Fjo\

urnal.pmed.0050217 & ct=1