This is a common misconception that springs up all the time, so let's talk industry bias in scientific research Does industry funding make a study bad - a tweetorialhttps://twitter.com/mabelyang/status/1103491457854423040 …
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So back to the original question Compared to non-industry trials, are industry trials (in terms of risk of bias)
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As I said, this is a question we can actually answer. Risk of bias is a somewhat subjective assessment, but even so we can compute it for different trials and see which ones are better or worse
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There are plenty of studies that have done just this Generally speaking, they find that industry funded trials are either as good as or BETTER than trials funded through other methods https://www.bmj.com/content/326/7400/1167?i- …pic.twitter.com/8eHxPMo1MZ
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So we know that industry funded trials are usually as good as or better than other research What does that mean for their results?
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To put it another way, are industry funded trials more or less likely to find positive results for the funding body?
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Well, we know that they're pretty good trials. If they were all fair comparisons, they should be the same or perhaps less likely
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But instead, when we look at the evidence, we find... Exactly the opposite Industry funded trials mostly report positive results for the funding bodypic.twitter.com/nblpNjJ564
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(I'll give you a hint - the industry is definitely not always right)
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A few people have answered, so let's put the cards on the table That's right, it's publication bias!
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If we look at industry funded trials, they are almost never negative (i.e. no benefit for the funding body) It turns out that often, the negative trials just aren't published!
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So individual trials can be very good - meaning that industry funding isn't necessarily an issue for individual trials - but they still make a misleading picture overall
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If you're interested in this issue, you should follow
@senseaboutsci who are doing great work getting studies registered and publishedShow this thread -
So ultimately, saying "the industry funded this trial" doesn't necessarily mean much in terms of its quality What it does say is that you should be looking for more research overall because there may be unpublished work contradicting the findings
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End of conversation
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