II. Efficacy: Manipulation of Pharma Sponsored Study Results
- Background
- Pharmaceutical companies have decades of work, billions of dollars of potential sales hinging on study results
- Newly introduced drugs are typically backed by studies that overestimate benefit and underestimate risk
- Methods of data manipulation
- Negative studies are not published
- Pharmaceutical supported studies with negative results are eliminated
- Journals are pressured not to publish Independent studies with negative results
- Adverse outcomes are suppressed in published reports
- Control group manipulation
- Limit the Placebo Effect (patients can infer that they are not taking the active drug)
- Statistical manipulation
- Pharma employs talented biostatisticians
- Selective study duration
- Limit trial duration to time where toxicity is not yet evident, and effects have not yet dissipated
- Negative studies are not published
III. Resources
- Goldacre (2014) Bad Pharma
IV. References
- Lin and Paradis in Herbert (2018) EM:Rap 18(9): 7-8