3 ms·

This article has left me speechless.. It reminds me of what my stats prof said about this kind of research..Researchers doing this kind of research have to beli

by xijuan 14y ago

This article has left me speechless.. It reminds me of what my stats prof said about this kind of research..Researchers doing this kind of research have to believe that they will find the results the pharmaceutical company wants before they conduct the study. In other words, they are not testing if the drug works; they are just showing that the drug works.

tomjen3 14y ago
Thats bad enough, but they essentially forced him (at the threat of imprisonment) to participate in a trial.
refurb 14y ago
Most of these clinical trials are triple-blinded. The doctor, patient and person analyzing the data don't know who took the drug and who took a placebo. How do they bias the results in that case?
- DanBC 14y ago
  Not all studies are effectively blinded, nor effectively randomised. Merck-funded researchers trivialised the problems of Vioxx. Those researchers were not evil or stupid. Subtle influences are hard to spot in yourself. When you look at the data there's a remarkable gap between independently funded studies and company funded studies. It's very clear that studies funded by companies more often show benefits and less often show harm. (There are several published studies on this.) And even if the blinding and randomising is effective there's no requirement to publish. Thus, a company can run ten trials and only publish the one that's positive.
- ChristinaM 14y ago
  By asking the right questions. In this case by aiming to find no significant difference between the 3 drugs under study then making sure the sample size was too small to find a difference no matter what.
- ScottBurson 14y ago
  In some cases, according to the article, by manipulating the dosages. The drugs they don't want to do well are given at either too low a dose, so as to be ineffective, or too high, so as to have an excess of side effects.
- capnrefsmmat 13y ago
  There are many choices to make when statistically analyzing the data, and it is not terribly hard to play around with choices until you get a favorable result. For example, one common problem is truth inflation: clinical trials are conducted with too-small sample sizes, so they can't detect the result they're looking for. If you run enough of these, the only statistically significant results you will get will significantly exaggerate the true effects of the drug. Some explanation and citations here, along with many other statistical tricks: http://www.refsmmat.com/articles/statistics.html#truth-inflation http://www.refsmmat.com/articles/statistics.html#truth-infla... There's also a well-known problem called "vibration of effects" where you can play with controlling different variables, using different analyses methods, and so on, resulting in an estimate of a drug's effects that oscillates by a factor of two. Look for John Ioannidis' paper "Why Most Discovered True Associations Are Inflated".

by xijuan 14y ago

tomjen3 14y ago

Thats bad enough, but they essentially forced him (at the threat of imprisonment) to participate in a trial.

refurb 14y ago

Most of these clinical trials are triple-blinded. The doctor, patient and person analyzing the data don't know who took the drug and who took a placebo. How do they bias the results in that case?

DanBC 14y ago
Not all studies are effectively blinded, nor effectively randomised. Merck-funded researchers trivialised the problems of Vioxx. Those researchers were not evil or stupid. Subtle influences are hard to spot in yourself. When you look at the data there's a remarkable gap between independently funded studies and company funded studies. It's very clear that studies funded by companies more often show benefits and less often show harm. (There are several published studies on this.) And even if the blinding and randomising is effective there's no requirement to publish. Thus, a company can run ten trials and only publish the one that's positive.
ChristinaM 14y ago
By asking the right questions. In this case by aiming to find no significant difference between the 3 drugs under study then making sure the sample size was too small to find a difference no matter what.
ScottBurson 14y ago
In some cases, according to the article, by manipulating the dosages. The drugs they don't want to do well are given at either too low a dose, so as to be ineffective, or too high, so as to have an excess of side effects.
capnrefsmmat 13y ago
There are many choices to make when statistically analyzing the data, and it is not terribly hard to play around with choices until you get a favorable result. For example, one common problem is truth inflation: clinical trials are conducted with too-small sample sizes, so they can't detect the result they're looking for. If you run enough of these, the only statistically significant results you will get will significantly exaggerate the true effects of the drug. Some explanation and citations here, along with many other statistical tricks: http://www.refsmmat.com/articles/statistics.html#truth-inflation http://www.refsmmat.com/articles/statistics.html#truth-infla... There's also a well-known problem called "vibration of effects" where you can play with controlling different variables, using different analyses methods, and so on, resulting in an estimate of a drug's effects that oscillates by a factor of two. Look for John Ioannidis' paper "Why Most Discovered True Associations Are Inflated".