{"id":10786,"date":"2003-03-01T10:27:50","date_gmt":"2003-03-01T10:27:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/i-base.info\/htb\/?p=10786"},"modified":"2014-05-28T16:25:56","modified_gmt":"2014-05-28T16:25:56","slug":"drug-industry-contributions-influence-clinical-research-jama-study-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/htb\/10786","title":{"rendered":"Drug industry contributions influence clinical research, JAMA study says"},"content":{"rendered":"

Financial ties between academic researchers and universities and pharmaceutical companies are \u201cpervasive and may impact the research process,\u201d according to a study in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), USA Today reports.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The study, titled \u201cScope and Impact of Financial Conflicts of Interest in Biomedical Research: A Systemic Review,\u201d analysed data from 37 peer-reviewed studies published between 1980 and 2000 to determine the \u201cextent, impact and management of financial conflicts.\u201d<\/p>\n

The study found that 25% of biomedical researchers at universities had commercial ties \u201cserious enough to raise questions of financial conflict\u201d and in many cases, \u201cenough to skew their research,\u201d the Los Angeles Times reports.<\/p>\n

The study also found that universities, which are \u201cexpected to police the integrity and ethics\u201d of faculty researchers, \u201chave their own commercial research interests\u201d and financial conflicts of interest, the Times reports.<\/p>\n

About two-thirds of the universities studied had equity in companies whose research they were supposed to monitor; 27 universities had equity in 10 or more companies.<\/p>\n

As result of the conflicts of interest, industry-sponsored research is 3.6 times more likely to have results favourable to the company that funded the research, according to the study (Hotz, Los Angeles Times, 1\/22).<\/p>\n

The study found that the protocols for industry-sponsored research often \u201cfavour the sponsor\u2019s drug\u201d; in addition, many researchers will not publish studies with \u201cunfavourable results,\u201d and medical journals often do not publish studies with \u201cboring, negative results\u201d for new treatments (USA Today, 1\/22).<\/p>\n

Future Impact<\/h2>\n

Industry funds have become the \u201clifeblood\u201d of biomedical research – they accounted for 62% of US expenditures on prescription drug research by 2000 – but fewer than half of 47 of the \u201cmost influential\u201d medical journals have disclosure policies to \u201calert the public to the possibility of bias,\u201d the Times reports.<\/p>\n

In addition, although most universities and medical centres have disclosure policies, they often do not adhere to them in practice (Los Angeles Times, 1\/22).<\/p>\n

There is a lot of idealism about how science is isolated and objective,\u201d Virginia Ashby Sharpe, a bioethicist at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, said, adding, \u201cUnfortunately, that\u2019s not the case. Money can absolutely influence scientists\u201d (USA Today, 1\/22).<\/p>\n

According to the study, because a \u201cconvergence of pressures … will likely lead to increased reliance on industry financing\u201d for biomedical research in the future, \u201cclose scrutiny will be required to understand and monitor the unintended consequences of academic-industry collaboration\u201d (Bekelman et al., JAMA, 1\/22).<\/p>\n

Reference:<\/p>\n

JE Bekelman et al. Scope and Impact of Financial Conflicts of Interest in Biomedical Research. A Systematic Review. Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) 2003;289:454-465.<\/p>\n

Source: JAMA<\/strong><\/p>\n

JAMA abstract:<\/strong>
\n http:\/\/jama.ama-assn.org\/issues\/v289n4\/abs\/jrv20091.html<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Financial ties between academic researchers and universities and pharmaceutical companies are \u201cpervasive and may impact the research process,\u201d according to a study in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), USA Today reports. The study, titled \u201cScope and Impact …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10786","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-other-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/htb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10786","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/htb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/htb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/htb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/htb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10786"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/htb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10786\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/htb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10786"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/htb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10786"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/htb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10786"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}