Healthy Skepticism Library item: 17889

Warning: This library includes all items relevant to health product marketing that we are aware of regardless of quality. Often we do not agree with all or part of the contents.

Publication type: Journal Article

Hopkins Tanne J
Better standards needed for industry sponsored clinical trials
BMJ 2002 Nov 2; 325:(7371):985
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/extract/325/7371/985/a

Abstract:

Three papers in the New England Journal of Medicine highlight problems of academic freedom and scientific integrity in agreements between medical schools and industry sponsors who pay for many clinical trials.

Agreements between industry and medical schools fall far short of the guidelines of the International Committee of Journal Editors and the Association of American Colleges, says a new survey (New England Journal of Medicine 2002;347:1335-41)[Abstract/Free Full Text].

Researchers from Duke University, in Durham, North Carolina, asked administrators at 108 US medical schools about their agreements with industry, looking at bias that might result from the sponsor’s role in designing the study, as well as investigators’ access to data and sponsors’ control of publication of trial results.

Medical schools are offered contracts that are “close to take it or leave it,” said the survey’s lead author, Dr Kevin Schulman, of the Center for Clinical and Genetic Economics, Duke University Medical Center. . . .