|
There's a potential for bias when conducting a study funded by a pharmaceutical company.
Over a year-long period ending in August, the New England Journal of Medicine published 73 articles on original studies of new drugs, encompassing drugs approved by the FDA since 2000 and experimental drugs, according to a review by The Washington Post.
Of those articles, 60 were funded by a pharmaceutical company, 50 were co-written by drug company employees and 37 had a lead author, typically an academic, who had previously accepted outside compensation from the sponsoring drug company in the form of consultant pay, grants or speaker fees.
When the company is footing the bill, the opportunities for bias are manifold: Company executives seeking to promote their drugs can design research that makes their products look better. They can select like-minded academics to perform the work. And they can run the statistics in ways that make their own drugs look better than they are. If troubling signs about a drug arise, they can steer clear of further exploration.
Pharmaceutical companies also employ representatives to visit healthcare practitioners in hospitals and offices to educate, update and provide samples of recent drugs their companies have produced. As experts on these drugs, they present their products with confidence, assurance and with the ability to answer questions about side effects, insurance coverage, microbial coverage and more. With the understanding that pharmaceutical companies play active roles in marketing their products, it is important to ask, how much influence these companies have on healthcare practitioners’ prescribing habits.
|
Quick Reply
