Who Do You Trust?

No, it's not a game show, but the latest study from the British Medical Journal comparing industry-funded studies to more independent analyses conducted by the Cochrane Collaborative, an international consortium devoted to writing evidence-based clinical practice guidelines.

The meta-analyses reviewed in the study compared new drugs for a disease to an existing drug. Given that industry rarely funds comparative trials or comparative analyses, it's not surprising that the three Nordic scientists, two of whom were associated with the Cochrane Collaborative, found only eight industry-funded meta-analyses for their review. Seven of those studies "recommended the experimental drug without reservations." When the researchers looked at the seven Cochrane reviews for the same drugs, none of the newer drugs in the studies proved superior.

"Industry supported reviews of drugs should be read with caution as they were less transparent, had few reservations about methodological limitations of the included trials, and had more favorable conclusions than the corresponding Cochrane reviews," the study concluded.