Trials funded by for profit organisations favour the intervention

Authors' conclusions in randomised clinical trials were significantly more favourable towards the experimental intervention when trials were funded only by for profit organisations. In Kjaergard and Als-Nielsen's study of trials published in the BMJ (p 249), authors' conclusions were appraised on a six point scale and compared with financial, personal, academic, or political competing interests. The association, the authors say, could occur because for profit organisations, by skill or by chance, fund only those trials in which the intervention is better than the control, or it could be due to publication bias.

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Relevant Article

Association between competing interests and authors' conclusions: epidemiological study of randomised clinical trials published in the BMJ

Lise L Kjaergard and Bodil Als-Nielsen
BMJ 2002 325: 249. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]