Validity of medical research financed by the pharmaceutical industry - Page 2

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RapidCoffee
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#11: Post by RapidCoffee »

I shouldn't touch this one with a ten foot pole, but I can't let these gross generalizations pass without some rebuttal. :wink:

[11' pole]
I'm disappointed to read all this research bashing, medical and otherwise. This discussion of abuses in the system is IMHO very misleading. If a company develops a medical product, they must follow certain guidelines designed to protect the consumer before bringing it to market. This is not an easy task.

My brother has been attempting to bring a medical device to market for several years. This device appears to improve recovery of stroke patients. The process of getting FDA approval and doing clinical trials is unbelievably long, arduous, and expensive. In the meanwhile, the company must stay afloat with no income (and usually resorts to VC funding). It's amazing that any product ever makes it to market, no matter how good.
GC7 wrote:This of course does not change the fact that publications funded by conferences (the topic of this thread that we should get back to) are generally published as is without any peer review and need to be read with caution as to quality and conclusions
You seem to believe that conference articles are worthless. I disagree. It takes a long time (many months and often years) to publish papers in journals. In some areas (like my field, computer science), publication of cutting edge work is typically done at conferences. For you to casually dismiss this venue of publication is simply, well, ridiculous. The majority of conferences (certainly every one that I have attended) do require peer review, although the criteria for acceptance may be less stringent than (some) journals. Just like journal submissions, acceptance rates depend on the particular conference. (E.g., I recently reviewed four conference submissions, and recommended marginal acceptance of one, rejection of three.)

Critical evaluation of any research is essential, regardless of the source. That's part of the scientific process. And peer review is not perfect, but what is a better solution? I'd rather have my funding proposals and papers reviewed by my research peers than some clueless politician or administrator.
[/11' pole]
John

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ddr
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#12: Post by ddr »

I think the entire discussion boils down to this:
Vendors should not suppress the publication of scientific research.
If that means that the vendors will stop providing "grants" to researchers because they feel that they are no longer controlling the publication of the research, then so be it. If a vendor is providing a grant to further the science in an area, then that vendor should not feel like they have paid for a positive (positive in a marketing sense, not a scientific sense) finding because they have funded the research, and not having control over what gets published should be a non issue for them.

With that said, try getting a vendor to remove the clause giving them authority over what gets published from the contract which accompanies their grant. Vendors with no hidden agenda should be willing to allow the peer review process to govern what gets published.

What is the right way? Who knows. We could just have NIH govern all the grant money, but then what happens when God tells the President that a particular type of research is evil? Same thing as when the vendors govern the money, it gets cut off from people who think "the wrong way".
Dan
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RapidCoffee
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#13: Post by RapidCoffee »

Dan, of course I agree. Publication of results should not be suppressed, period. It's part of the scientific process.

However, it's not usually that simple. Perhaps folks are forgetting how much easier it is to publish positive results. If you come up with a great new drug, or find a more efficient algorithm, or build a better mousetrap, everyone wants to hear about it. Writing up negative results just doesn't support the same level of interest. And for every successful drug trial, there are bound to be hundreds, maybe thousands, of compounds that didn't prove efficacious.

This attitude is not restricted to pharmaceutical research, it pervades many spheres. Striking a bit closer to home, how many negative equipment reviews do you see on coffee sites?
John

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#14: Post by GC7 »

RapidCoffee wrote:Critical evaluation of any research is essential, regardless of the source. That's part of the scientific process. And peer review is not perfect, but what is a better solution? I'd rather have my funding proposals and papers reviewed by my research peers than some clueless politician or administrator.
[/11' pole]
John

Apologies if my comments were misconstrued. I am 1000% behind your statement above. I never used the word "worthless" that you put to my evaluation of conference publications. In my current field, genomics, systems biology (highly computer intensive) and cancer and in others that I am familiar including most all of the biological sciences a conference paper is not carefully reviewed or reviewed at all and we save the major pieces of data for high impact journals. Computer sciences and other fields may be different. On the whole of it with regard to any major points I believe we are in total agreement.

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#15: Post by RapidCoffee »

I think so too. :)
John

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#16: Post by TUS172 »

Is Home Barista the place to be posting this type of highly opinionated OT stuff? There are dozens of other forums on more appropriate sites than this one to post such volatile threads such as this... JMHO :?
Bob C.
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Ken Fox (original poster)
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#17: Post by Ken Fox (original poster) »

RapidCoffee wrote:Dan, of course I agree. Publication of results should not be suppressed, period. It's part of the scientific process.

However, it's not usually that simple. Perhaps folks are forgetting how much easier it is to publish positive results. If you come up with a great new drug, or find a more efficient algorithm, or build a better mousetrap, everyone wants to hear about it. Writing up negative results just doesn't support the same level of interest. And for every successful drug trial, there are bound to be hundreds, maybe thousands, of compounds that didn't prove efficacious.
The issue I was trying to highlight was that taking a given experimental subject (a drug either in the process of being approved for sale, or for a "new" indication) if one only publishes the positive studies, or publishes all the positive ones and very few negative ones, then one gets the impression that a drug compound is more effective than it really is. Of course, that is in the interest of the drug companies selling the drug(s), from a purely financial standpoint.

Granted, there are many many studies that produce results of no interest whatsoever, or studies about compounds nowhere near ready to enter the marketplace. One can't publish all of these because there is no space for them, and few will want to read them.
RapidCoffee wrote: This attitude is not restricted to pharmaceutical research, it pervades many spheres. Striking a bit closer to home, how many negative equipment reviews do you see on coffee sites?
We might have another thing in play here; cognitive dissonance :mrgreen:
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SL28ave
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#18: Post by SL28ave »

TUS172 wrote:Is Home Barista the place to be posting this type of highly opinionated OT stuff? There are dozens of other forums on more appropriate sites than this one to post such volatile threads such as this... JMHO :?
While the title of this thread seems humorously out of place, I do think the concept is interesting if not important. How many future coffee researchers read this forum?

I've always followed ASIC postings, as Malachi seems to as well.
http://www.asic-cafe.org/htm/eng/toceng.php?number=16

I must say I have a horrible allergy to sweeping generalizations when we're talking about something other than math. There can be more meat.
"Few, but ripe." -Carl Friedrich Gauss

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#19: Post by RapidCoffee »

Ken Fox wrote:We might have another thing in play here; cognitive dissonance :mrgreen:
I don't think the reasons are that subtle. :)
John

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#20: Post by TUS172 »

SL28ave wrote:While the title of this thread seems humorously out of place, I do think the concept is interesting if not important. How many future coffee researchers read this forum?
I've always followed ASIC postings, as Malachi seems to as well.
http://www.asic-cafe.org/htm/eng/toceng.php?number=16
I must say I have a horrible allergy to sweeping generalizations when we're talking about something other than math. There can be more meat.
Hmm... When I first read the thread I had not noted that it was split from another on the Coffee forum...Sorry.
Bob C.
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