Rapid responses are electronic comments to the editor. They enable our users to debate issues raised in articles published on bmj.com. A rapid response is first posted online. If you need the URL (web address) of an individual response, simply click on the response headline and copy the URL from the browser window. A proportion of responses will, after editing, be published online and in the print journal as letters, which are indexed in PubMed. Rapid responses are not indexed in PubMed and they are not journal articles. The BMJ reserves the right to remove responses which are being wilfully misrepresented as published articles.
The weekly journal club at the University Psychiary Unit at the
National Hospital of Sri Lanka, Colombo, had the privilege to discuss this
article by Wieseler et al. I would like to highlight one interesting point
that was discussed.
Authors reveal how Pfizer tried to hide the fact that they had
specifically prevented the publication of a large number of studies. But
in the end the authors, or the institution they represent, IQWig, seems to
have pressurised Pfizer to provide the withheld data.
In the last paragraph under the subtopic 'Problems in obtaining data
for health technology assessment', one may read the following two
sentences: However, Pfizer then decided to provide most of the missing
data. The subsequent assessment showed that, overall, reboxetine had no
benefit.
The interesting point here is that Pfizer provided only 'most of the
missing data', not all of them. And that reanalysis showed that
'reboxetine had no benefit.' It is interesting to think what might the
conclusion be if all the missing data was available. One can only imagine
what kind of data one would find in the studies that were not made
available by Pfizer in the end.
Competing interests:
No competing interests
11 November 2010
Mahesh Rajasuriya
Senior Lecturer
Department of Psychological Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, University of Colombo, Sri Lanka
Feedback from a journal club
The weekly journal club at the University Psychiary Unit at the
National Hospital of Sri Lanka, Colombo, had the privilege to discuss this
article by Wieseler et al. I would like to highlight one interesting point
that was discussed.
Authors reveal how Pfizer tried to hide the fact that they had
specifically prevented the publication of a large number of studies. But
in the end the authors, or the institution they represent, IQWig, seems to
have pressurised Pfizer to provide the withheld data.
In the last paragraph under the subtopic 'Problems in obtaining data
for health technology assessment', one may read the following two
sentences: However, Pfizer then decided to provide most of the missing
data. The subsequent assessment showed that, overall, reboxetine had no
benefit.
The interesting point here is that Pfizer provided only 'most of the
missing data', not all of them. And that reanalysis showed that
'reboxetine had no benefit.' It is interesting to think what might the
conclusion be if all the missing data was available. One can only imagine
what kind of data one would find in the studies that were not made
available by Pfizer in the end.
Competing interests: No competing interests