How Pharma Can Skew Drug Trial Results: If patients taking a drug die, study may include only those that survived

Drug companies sidestep rules and hide test results, according to researchers in Canada, France and Britain. David Moher of the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute said that there are two ways to let bias creep into a study: 1) decide the study doesn’t show what a drug company wanted to illustrate, and hide the whole thing, or 2) play up the good news in study findings while concealing the bad, known as “outcome reporting bias.”

Tom Spears
CanWest News Service
September 29, 2009

OTTAWA – Doctors and patients may not get the full story on some prescription drugs because companies sidestep rules and hide test results, according to researchers in Canada, France and Britain.

Anyone doing a clinical trial of a drug is supposed to announce publicly that the trial is under way and describe its goals. But David Moher of the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute said many tests are conducted without this disclosure.

This allows scientists, or the drug companies who pay for the work, to release good results but quietly cancel anything that looks bad for their product.

“Selective outcome [result] reporting is prevalent,” Dr. Moher’s study concluded.

Read entire article: http://www.ottawacitizen.com/health/Drug+firms+hiding+test+results+Study/2042678/story.html

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