How Big Pharma and the Media Sell Junk Science
Posted: Wed Apr 23, 2014 4:16 am
Here are some of industry’s (and the mainstream media’s) favorite ways to distort science:
Publication bias. About half of all drug trials aren’t made publicly available, and positive findings are twice as likely to be published as negative findings for the same drug. So if a drug is harmful or doesn’t work, you’ll probably never hear about it. Conversely, if results are negative or can be made negative for supplements, which are thought to compete with drugs, you will certainly hear about it.
“Seeding”? trials. Should a study designed by the marketing department really be cited as scientific evidence? Big Pharma has been known to disguise marketing schemes as legitimate drugs trials (the most well-known example of this is Vioxx’s ADVANTAGE trial). The funding of negative supplement studies is often obscured, but we can guess where the money is coming from.
Ghostwritten studies. Many “independent”? studies are designed, conducted, and analyzed by drug companies—and then published under a physician’s name. In the case of supplements, researchers biased against supplements can readily be found, although the same names appear over and over again.
“Perfect”? patients. Study results can also be manipulated by choosing patients who you know in advance will demonstrate the outcome desired—for example, by giving patients with no nutrient deficiencies a multivitamin, and then concluding that supplements don’t make them healthier.
Deceptively low doses. What’s an easy way to “prove”? a dietary supplement has no impact on human health? Give it in such low doses that the result you want is guaranteed.
Questionable methodologies. Do you remember what you ate for dinner, every night, for the past ten years? Probably not. Yet, many studies rely on “recall”?—simply asking patients about as much as five years’ worth of health habits or to self-report whether or not they complied with experiment protocols. There studies are notoriously unreliable.
Cherry-picking conclusions. A single study can lead to multiple—even conflicting—conclusions. Often, the media picks the most shocking conclusion, and ignores the rest. For example, when Mayor Bloomberg mandated flu shots for children under 5, he touted the vaccine’s 59% effectiveness rate. This is accurate—in a perfect, lab-controlled environment. The exact same document showed that in real-world settings, this rate tumbles to 24 to 36%.
Skewed meta-analyses. Meta-analyses statistically combine the data of relevant individual studies. When done correctly, they can help researchers draw comprehensive conclusions from a large, diverse body of data. However, the integrity of a meta-analysis can easily be compromised: researchers may distort results by ignoring studies that don’t agree with their hypotheses, all while hiding behind the authoritative façade of meta-analysis.
Tiny sample sizes. Many studies with just a few participants misleadingly claim “definitive”? conclusions. But the smaller the participant pool, the less reliable the results (this is why proper meta-analyses can be so useful). Of course, many supplement studies are tiny because natural substances are not supposed to be patentable, which means that nobody will pay for a large study. This is why valid conclusions about supplements often employ the verb “may,”? as in this supplement “may”? improve heart health. Lab and animal studies may also provide further support for hypotheses drawn from small studies, but the FDA generally disregards them.
Overly brief study periods. Researchers with an agenda can toy with a study’s length or timeframe. This is a great way to trim unwanted data, or avoid reporting undesirable health effects—for example, the hundreds of studies claiming GMOs are safe focus only on very short-term exposure; the effects of long-term exposure remains unstudied. Animal studies suggest that GMOs could have epigenetic effects that may even take generations to appear.
Parroting press releases. In the age of instantaneous news, media outlets are eager to be the first to “get the scoop”? on the latest, hottest study. In doing so, they usually simply regurgitate the study’s press release (which says what the drug company, or the researcher allied with a drug company, wants them to say) instead of spending time on independent analysis and research.
Reliance on Big Pharma’s advertising dollars. As newspaper and other media lose advertising to the Internet and other places, they depend heavily on drug companies (in 2012, the pharmaceutical industry spent $90 million on print advertising). Publishing articles that protect Big Pharma’s interests may be rewarded with more profits.
Hidden funders. University-published research is always more reliable, right? Think again: Big Food and Big Ag now fund many public and private universities. And, since the funding may be earmarked for, say, research positions, and not specific studies, rampant conflicts of interest can be easily concealed.
http://www.anh-usa.org/selling-junk-science/
Publication bias. About half of all drug trials aren’t made publicly available, and positive findings are twice as likely to be published as negative findings for the same drug. So if a drug is harmful or doesn’t work, you’ll probably never hear about it. Conversely, if results are negative or can be made negative for supplements, which are thought to compete with drugs, you will certainly hear about it.
“Seeding”? trials. Should a study designed by the marketing department really be cited as scientific evidence? Big Pharma has been known to disguise marketing schemes as legitimate drugs trials (the most well-known example of this is Vioxx’s ADVANTAGE trial). The funding of negative supplement studies is often obscured, but we can guess where the money is coming from.
Ghostwritten studies. Many “independent”? studies are designed, conducted, and analyzed by drug companies—and then published under a physician’s name. In the case of supplements, researchers biased against supplements can readily be found, although the same names appear over and over again.
“Perfect”? patients. Study results can also be manipulated by choosing patients who you know in advance will demonstrate the outcome desired—for example, by giving patients with no nutrient deficiencies a multivitamin, and then concluding that supplements don’t make them healthier.
Deceptively low doses. What’s an easy way to “prove”? a dietary supplement has no impact on human health? Give it in such low doses that the result you want is guaranteed.
Questionable methodologies. Do you remember what you ate for dinner, every night, for the past ten years? Probably not. Yet, many studies rely on “recall”?—simply asking patients about as much as five years’ worth of health habits or to self-report whether or not they complied with experiment protocols. There studies are notoriously unreliable.
Cherry-picking conclusions. A single study can lead to multiple—even conflicting—conclusions. Often, the media picks the most shocking conclusion, and ignores the rest. For example, when Mayor Bloomberg mandated flu shots for children under 5, he touted the vaccine’s 59% effectiveness rate. This is accurate—in a perfect, lab-controlled environment. The exact same document showed that in real-world settings, this rate tumbles to 24 to 36%.
Skewed meta-analyses. Meta-analyses statistically combine the data of relevant individual studies. When done correctly, they can help researchers draw comprehensive conclusions from a large, diverse body of data. However, the integrity of a meta-analysis can easily be compromised: researchers may distort results by ignoring studies that don’t agree with their hypotheses, all while hiding behind the authoritative façade of meta-analysis.
Tiny sample sizes. Many studies with just a few participants misleadingly claim “definitive”? conclusions. But the smaller the participant pool, the less reliable the results (this is why proper meta-analyses can be so useful). Of course, many supplement studies are tiny because natural substances are not supposed to be patentable, which means that nobody will pay for a large study. This is why valid conclusions about supplements often employ the verb “may,”? as in this supplement “may”? improve heart health. Lab and animal studies may also provide further support for hypotheses drawn from small studies, but the FDA generally disregards them.
Overly brief study periods. Researchers with an agenda can toy with a study’s length or timeframe. This is a great way to trim unwanted data, or avoid reporting undesirable health effects—for example, the hundreds of studies claiming GMOs are safe focus only on very short-term exposure; the effects of long-term exposure remains unstudied. Animal studies suggest that GMOs could have epigenetic effects that may even take generations to appear.
Parroting press releases. In the age of instantaneous news, media outlets are eager to be the first to “get the scoop”? on the latest, hottest study. In doing so, they usually simply regurgitate the study’s press release (which says what the drug company, or the researcher allied with a drug company, wants them to say) instead of spending time on independent analysis and research.
Reliance on Big Pharma’s advertising dollars. As newspaper and other media lose advertising to the Internet and other places, they depend heavily on drug companies (in 2012, the pharmaceutical industry spent $90 million on print advertising). Publishing articles that protect Big Pharma’s interests may be rewarded with more profits.
Hidden funders. University-published research is always more reliable, right? Think again: Big Food and Big Ag now fund many public and private universities. And, since the funding may be earmarked for, say, research positions, and not specific studies, rampant conflicts of interest can be easily concealed.
http://www.anh-usa.org/selling-junk-science/