‘Misleading’ Research From Industry?
By John Tierney
In 2005, The Journal of the American Medical Association cited “concerns about misleading reporting of industry-sponsored research” to justify its stricter standards for any such research to be considered for publication. The new policy, requiring researchers with no financial connections to the sponsor to vouch for the data and perform statistical work, was promptly criticized in an editorial in The British Medical Journal as “manifestly unfair” because it created a “a hierarchy of purity among authors.”
Now some researchers have looked to see what kind of hierarchy actually exists. After analyzing weight-loss research conducted over four decades, they’ve found that the quality of data reporting in industry-sponsored research does seem to be different from that in other research: It’s better.
The analysis was published in The International Journal of Obesity (and financed not by industry but by the National Institutes of Health). The authors, a team of six researchers from the University of Alabama, McMaster University and the University of British Columbia, analyzed what types of data were reported in more than 60 large, long-term randomized clinical trials for obesity treatment conducted between 1966 and 2003. They rated the quality of the data using a standard checklist of the kind of information that ideally should be reported at each stage of a clinical trial.
The researchers found that the quality of data was significantly better in industry-supported research than in nonindustry-supported research, particularly in studies involving drug treatments. The researchers conclude:
This suggests that, while continued efforts to improve reporting quality are warranted, such efforts should be directed at nonindustry-funded research at least as much as at industry-funded research. A benefit of the greater funding offered by industry, the greater scrutiny of industry, or perhaps greater concern or training of industry personnel for rigorous reporting may be an enhancement of the overall reporting quality in the literature, at least for long-term weight-loss studies.
My colleague Gina Kolata recently reported that some prominent medical researchers are starting to shun any financial support from industry — not because they think it leads to bad research but because they’re tired of having their integrity impugned. As readers of the comments on this blog know, these ad hominem attacks have become routine against anyone or any group receiving industry money.
In light of the new study, I worry what will happen if the best scientists become afraid to work with the sponsors that can afford to pay for the most thorough studies. What happens to the quality of future research? And should this new study give pause to JAMA’s editors? By stigmatizing industry-sponsored research, is their “hierarchy of purity” doing more harm than good?
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