We've all known research can be biased, but it's good to see the admission in
print, especially with an emphasis on baby formula studies.
Joyce Jones

> 03:52 PM ET 07/30/98
 Conflict of interest likely to taint medical studies
  (Release at 2301 GMT, Thursday, July 30)

>      LONDON, July 31 (Reuters) - The results of medical studies
 are likely to be tainted or flawed if they are funded by
 industry and researchers have a conflict of interest, experts
 said on Friday.
      ``Almost all funding comes with strings attached,'' Hurst
 Hannum, a professor at Tufts University in Massachusetts, said
 in report in the British Medical Journal (BMJ).
      ``At a minimum, the recipient must be accountable for how
 grants are spent. At a maximum, the recipient must deliver a
 particular product that is acceptable to the donor.''
      In a series of articles in the weekly journal doctors,
 professors and industry representatives debated the ethical
 dilemma of companies -- particular tobacco, alcohol and infant
 formula manufacturers -- financing research.
      Tom Sorell of the University of Essex in England argued that
   research funded by the tobacco industry has a tainted history
 and needed to be closely monitored.
      ``Payments to some tobacco researchers have come from secret
 funds or front organisations with misleading names. Much worse,
 the industry has suppressed findings of its own researchers that
   bear out what its opponents have claimed,'' he said.
      Richard Smith, the editor of the journal, cited two
 important studies published in American journals that showed
 authors were more likely to be supportive of a drug or product
 if they had financial backing from the company.
      In a review of 70 medical articles about a type of drug to
 treat cardiovascular disease, published in the New England
 Journal of Medicine, the authors discovered that two-thirds of
 the authors had industry backing.
      ``Almost all supportive authors (96 percent) had financial
 relationships with manufacturers, compared with 60 percent
 neutral authors and 37 percent of critical authors,'' he said in
 an editorial.
      A second study in the Journal of the American Medical
 Association (JAMA) of 106 reviews on passive smoking found
 similar results. Three quarters of the articles that found
 passive smoking was not harmful were written by tobacco industry
   affiliates.
      ``These two papers and their predecessors begin to build a
 solid case that conflict of interest has an impact on the
 conclusions reached by papers in medical journals,'' he added.
      Smith said from now on the authors of papers, editorials and
   reviews of articles in the magazine will be asked if they have
 ``competing interests'' which will relate to purely financial
 matters.
      If they have none the magazine will tell readers at the end
 of each article or if it is found that authors had competing
 interest readers will be informed.




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