Study Shows One Third of All Studies Are Nonsense

SydShamino writes "CNN has a report on new research to confirm claims made in initial, well-publicized studies. According to the new study, about a third of all major studies from the last 15 years were subsequently shown to be inaccurate or overblown. The study abstract is available."

Comments

Re:nice

[nickj6282]

Most obvious comment ever has been taken. On November 12, 2001 (61 days after the WTC attack in NYC) American Airlines flight 587 took off from JFK and promptly crashed into a Queens neighborhood. Obviously, most Americans suspected the worst. That day, I was watching CNN when one of these so-called "experts" (sic) came on and actually said in plain english:

"This is not a very good time for something like this to happen."

So my question is this: when is a good time for an airplane full of people to crash into a residential neighborhood? This guy should designate a day for us so we can make sure all the airlines and pilots know when the good day for crashing is. Morons.

This study is actually alarming

[typical]

Okay, I know that everyone likes throwing out wisecracks about the headline, which was ever-so-cleverly chosen by the article submitter, but consider the article for a moment.

This is about the accuracy of clinical trial research. This is not about market research studies in the latest clothes fashions. Medicine is an extremely lucrative and risky field -- being associated with the group that pushes through the next Viagra can ensure that your family becomes the next Rockefellers. Your only opposition is the FDA (and the politicians that influence it, which are always hungry for money, which you have lots of).

There is a tremendous amount of pressure on pharmaceutical researchers to produce favorable results. Let's say that you're a new, idealistic researcher who runs some tests on a new drug that your employer wants to market. Your tests show that our drug produces an increased rate of cancer? Well, been nice having you work here...bye. Bob down the hall has consistently gotten us much better results to feed to the FDA for approval. We really don't know how or why he gets better results, but he's definitely the man we want on the job. Sure, maybe twenty years down the road there will be some complaining, but *we didn't know*...*we did all our due dilligence and somehow our results just wound up showing that our drug was okay*.

And even the more innocent "conclusive results" become suspect. A pharmaceutical doesn't want "inconclusive results", where "further tests are recommended". They have a bloody lifetime on the product ticking away, and a competition breathing down their neck. They want some scientist to sign off on this thing with a nice firm "Okay" or "Not Okay", or else what are they paying the guy for? He's not here to do ivory tower work -- he's here to serve the company, which is in the business of extracting savings from aging and achy baby boomers and subsidies paid for by their tax-paying children.

What is being said is that a full third of examined clinical trials were essentially horseshit. This is really not a laughing matter.