Researchers are under increasingly strong scrutiny for conflicts of interest and funding from the drug industry. Now McGill University investigators have pinpointed a loophole through which these suspect associations are kept quiet: meta-analyses.
Meta-analyses, which examine a given number of studies and draw broader conclusions, are cited more than any other study design. However, as reported in March 2011 in the Journal of the American Medical Association, meta-analyses rarely mention the conflict of info data of the original studies. This means that users of meta-analyses for further research--not to mention average readers--may overlook potential biases in the evidence.
"Pharmaceutical industry-funded studies more often yield results or conclusions in support of the sponsor's drug, and authors' relationships with drug manufacturers have been linked to favorable assessments of drug efficacy and safety," according to the background information in the article.