Los que tienen el dinero hacen las reglas: auspicios y resultados en la investigación médica
Those who have the gold make the rules: funding and outcomes in medicines research
Salud(i)ciencia (Impresa); 14 (3), 2006
Publication year: 2006
Last year, three coauthors and I published a systematic review and meta-analysis showing that the outcome of medicines research of all types is dependent on the source of funding.
We showed that when pharmaceutical companies sponsor research it is much more likely to have a positive outcome than when funding comes from other sources.
We postulated two possible reasons for our findings:
publication bias and the use of inappropriate comparators. Since our article appeared, four similar papers have been published with three of these supporting our findings. The one dissenting paper may have suffered from a Type II error. Other explanations advanced to account for this bias and included a biased interpretation of the overall trial results. As the pharmaceutical industry expands its role in funding medicines research the bias in outcomes threatens the entire scientific endeavour.
El año pasado, tres coautores y yo publicamos una revisión sistemática y un metaanálisis que mostraban que los resultados de la investigación médica de cualquier tipo dependen de
la fuente de recursos económicos. Mostramos que cuando las compañías farmacéuticas auspician los trabajos de investigación, éstos son mucho más proclives a tener un resultado positivo que cuando los fondos provienen de otras fuentes.