Beware Industry-Funded Researchers on Drugs

"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."