Drugmakers still have too much control over research conducted for them at US medical schools, raising questions about the integrity and future use of the work, a survey in the Oct. 24 New England Journal of Medicine found.
Last year, editors of more than 500 medical journals compiled a list of requirements for publication of scientific research. The guidelines, giving researchers access to study data and authority to publish their results, were an attempt to loosen the industry's control over medical findings.
The survey of 108 members of the Association of American Medical Colleges found contracts between colleges and companies generally don't meet the new requirements. One percent of the contracts guaranteed researchers access to all the data, and they rarely allowed scientists to fully participate in the design of the study or decide if the results are published.
"We were surprised by the extent to which the agreements entered into by medical schools did not protect the independence of investigators in clinical studies and the integrity of their research," said Kevin Schulman, the lead author of the study and a medical professor at Duke University. "We were also surprised by how powerless the institutions said they were in the process," he said.
Drugmakers often pay for studies on new medicines to be conducted at universities, supplementing research budgets. The prestige of a leading scientist helps the companies when they present the work to the doctors who will prescribe their drugs.
Conflicts between the scientists and their sponsors gained attention in the late 1990s when researchers charged that Knoll, then a unit of BASF AG, suppressed a study showing its thyroid drug was no better than a generic version. The work was published in April 1997 in the Journal of the American Medical Association after a two-year battle. Abbott Laboratories now owns Knoll.
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