If we needed more evidence of questionable clinical trial ethics and publications resulting therefrom, we have it, in an article in PLoS Medicine. Cut to the conclusion:
"Randomized clinical trials of head-to-head comparisons of statins with other drugs are more likely to report results and conclusions favoring the sponsor's product compared to the comparator drug. This bias in drug–drug comparison trials should be considered when making decisions regarding drug choice."
So, as the San Francisco Chronicle put it, "money talks -- and very loudly when a drug company is funding a clinical trial involving one of its products." The paper quotes study author Lisa Bero: "If I'm a clinician or funder of health care, I really want to know within a class of drug which one works better. What our study shows is that depends on who funds the study."
About a third of the statin trials did not disclose any funding source. Trials with no disclosed funding source were less likely to favor the so-called test drug than those with industry funding, researchers found.
Posted by schwitz at June 6, 2007 06:53 AM | TrackBack