This is not the same issue being discussed here but recently one of the most prestigious medical journals, The Lancet, had to retract entirely a study it had run, in good faith, years before. Why? Because the editors learned that the researcher had been in the pay of lawyers representing the parents bringing suit against the vaccine manufacturer.

Below the top editors of the Journal of the American Medical Association are discussing is the potential for undue influence in pharmaceutical industry- sponsored trials.

This call for action is in order.

Patients and their physicians rely on research to inform their treatment choices.

They have to be able to trust what they read.

Medpage Today

“Editors of medical journals should unite in requiring independent statistical analyses of industry-sponsored clinical trials, according to the two top editors of the Journal of the American Medical Association. (Emphasis added)

“Such a measure would help prevent any inappropriate influence from the study sponsors on data analysis and reporting, wrote Catherine DeAngelis, MD, MPH, editor-in-chief of JAMA, and Phil Fontanarosa, MD, MBA, executive deputy editor of the journal, in an editorial. (Emphasis added)

“This approach would add powerful support to the fundamental principle that physicians must first do no harm,” they wrote in an editorial in the March 24/31 issue of JAMA.”

Source: Medpage Today, March 26, 2010

Citation: JAMA 2010; 303: 1196-98.