Intended for healthcare professionals

Rapid response to:

Education And Debate

Seeing what you want to see in randomised controlled trials: versions and perversions of UKPDS data

BMJ 2000; 320 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.320.7251.1720 (Published 24 June 2000) Cite this as: BMJ 2000;320:1720

Rapid Response:

Another bias for consideration:

Why do physicians and other health care workers see only what they
want to in randomised control trials?

I would like to add another bias to the excellent list suggested by
the authors; The 'rice bowl' bias.

To break someone's rice bowl is to take away his or her job. Is it
reasonable to expect those who make a living managing diabetic patients to
embrace an interpretation of a study that would have them break their own
rice bowls?

Competing interests: No competing interests

26 June 2000
Stephen Workman
Assistant professor
Dalhousie