[procaare] Drug Industry Contributions Influence Clinical Research

[ProCAARE <procaare@healthnet.org>]

"Drug Industry Contributions Influence Clinical Research, Study Says"
Source: Kaiser Daily HIV/AIDS Report (1.23.03)
******************

Financial ties between academic researchers and universities and pharmaceutical companies
are "pervasive and may impact the research process," according to a study in the Jan. 21
Journal of the American Medical Association, USA Today reports (Vergano, USA Today, 1/22).

The study, titled "Scope and Impact of Financial Conflicts of Interest in Biomedical
Research: A Systemic Review," analyzed data from 37 peer reviewed studies published
between 1980 and 2000 to determine the "extent, impact and management of financial
conflicts."  The study found that 25% of biomedical researchers at universities had
commercial ties "serious enough to raise questions of financial conflict" and in many
cases, "enough to skew their research," the Los Angeles Times reports.  The study also
found that universities, which are "expected to police the integrity and ethics" of
faculty researchers, "have their own commercial research interests" and financial
conflicts of interest, the Times reports.

About two-thirds of the universities studied had equity in companies whose research they
were supposed to monitor; 27 universities had equity in 10 or more companies.  As result
of the conflicts of interest, industry-sponsored research is 3.6 times more likely to have
results favorable to the company that funded the research, according to the study (Hotz,
Los Angeles Times, 1/22).  The study found that the protocols for industry sponsored
research often "favor the sponsor's drug"; in addition, many researchers will not publish
studies with "unfavorable results," and medical journals often do not publish studies with
"boring, negative results" for new treatments (USA Today, 1/22).

Industry funds have become the "lifeblood" of biomedical research -- they accounted for
62% of U.S. expenditures on prescription drug research by 2000 -- but fewer than half of
47 of the "most influential" medical journals have disclosure policies to "alert the
public to the possibility of bias," the Times reports.  In addition, although most
universities and medical centers have disclosure policies, they often do not adhere to
them in practice (Los Angeles Times, 1/22).  "There is a lot of idealism about how science
is isolated and objective," Virginia Ashby Sharpe, a bioethicist at the Center for Science
in the Public Interest, said, adding, "Unfortunately, that's not the case.  Money can
absolutely influence scientists" (USA Today, 1/22).  According to the study, because a
"convergence of pressures ... will likely lead to increased reliance on industry
financing" for biomedical research in the future, "close scrutiny will be required to
understand and monitor the unintended consequences of academic-industry collaboration"
(Bekelman et al., JAMA, 1/22).

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