Published 15 June 2009, doi:10.1136/bmj.b2397
Cite this as: BMJ 2009;338:b2397

Letters

Papers with industry ties

Classic confounding conflicts

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

The paper by Jagsi et al in Cancer examining conflicts of interest in published clinical cancer research and reported by Tanne may be an example of classic confounding.^{1 2}The industry funded trials may differ from non-industry funded trials in a way—for example, the treatments used—that is associated with the outcome. The treatments they compare are actually more effective.

The authors themselves note this, though not very clearly. Industry funded trials may not distort results at all (which is not the impression left in the reader’s mind after reading the BMJ), but they address different questions.

They may choose to investigate areas of cancer where success is likely to be greater. The questions they address and the designs of the studies may be different. This is bias, but of a very different nature to the idea that they distort results. The evidence is they tend to interpret similar results with . . . [Full text of this article]

¹ London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, London WC1E 7HT

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