Watch the Research

The British Medical Journal has again raised concerns recently that some drug test results go unreported and are deliberately hidden allowing companies to make unfounded claims. Data can often be unpublished, missing or is extremely slow to be published. This says the BMJ could put patients at risk. Indeed, one US study from Yale university found that fewer than half the 635 National Institutes Of Health funded trials were published in a peer-reviewed medical journal in 30 months. Peer reviewed work is considered essential to ensure mistakes are not made. Furthermore, a lot of research goes out of its way to prove an hypothesis rather then trying to disprove it- the latter provides more information and positive bias can be a problem in the design of many studies. There have been a number of drugs over the years which have been withdrawn and many have been found to have increased toxicity compared to the original test results.

Don’t assume all things you buy are vigorously tested or indeed safe.

Kevin, 16 February 2012