Relationship between Funding Source and Conclusion among Nutrition-Related Scientific Articles

BACKGROUND: Industrial support of biomedical research may bias scientific conclusions, as demonstrated by recent analyses of pharmaceutical studies. However, this issue has not been systematically examined in the area of nutrition research. The purpose of this study is to characterize financial sponsorship of scientific articles addressing the health effects of three commonly consumed beverages, and to determine how sponsorship affects published conclusions. METHODS AND FINDINGS: Medline searches of worldwide literature were used to identify three article types (interventional studies, observational studies, and scientific reviews) about soft drinks, juice, and milk published between 1 January, 1999 and 31 December, 2003. Financial sponsorship and article conclusions were classified by independent groups of coinvestigators. The relationship between sponsorship and conclusions was explored by exact tests and regression analyses, controlling for covariates. 206 articles were included in the study, of which 111 declared financial sponsorship. Of these, 22% had all industry funding, 47% had no industry funding, and 32% had mixed funding. Funding source was significantly related to conclusions when considering all article types (p = 0.037). For interventional studies, the proportion with unfavorable conclusions was 0% for all industry funding versus 37% for no industry funding (p = 0.009). The odds ratio of a favorable versus unfavorable conclusion was 7.61 (95% confidence interval 1.27 to 45.73), comparing articles with all industry funding to no industry funding. CONCLUSIONS: Industry funding of nutrition-related scientific articles may bias conclusions in favor of sponsors' products, with potentially significant implications for public health

Innovation and Access to Medicines for Neglected Populations: Could a Treaty Address a Broken Pharmaceutical R&D System?

As part of a cluster of articles leading up to the 2012 World Health Report and critically reflecting on the theme of “no health without research,” Suerie Moon and colleagues argue for a global health R&D treaty to improve innovation in new medicines and strengthening affordability, sustainable financing, efficiency in innovation, and equitable health-centered governance

Why we need easy access to all data from all clinical trials and how to accomplish it

International calls for registering all trials involving humans and for sharing the results, and sometimes also the raw data and the trial protocols, have increased in recent years. Such calls have come, for example, from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the World Health Organization (WHO), the US National Institutes of Heath, the US Congress, the European Commission, the European ombudsman, journal editors, The Cochrane Collaboration, and several funders, for example the UK Medical Research Council, the Wellcome Trust, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Hewlett Foundation

Flow Diagram for Inclusion of Articles in the Study

<p>Flow Diagram for Inclusion of Articles in the Study</p

Percentage of Articles with Disclosed Funding by Publication Year (<i>n</i> = 206)

<p>Bars extend to the confidence limits of the exact binomial 95% CI. (Overall, funding declared for 62% of interventional studies, 67% of observational studies, and 19% of scientific reviews.)</p

PUBLIC-PRIVATE PARTNERSHIP TO DEVELOP TECHNOLOGY INFRASTRUCTURE: A CASE STUDY OF THE ECONOMIC RETURNS OF DNA DIAGNOSTICS

This paper presents a quantitative case analysis of one US Advanced Technology Program (ATP) public-private partnership that advanced the technology infrastructure of molecular diagnostics, resulting in substantial downstream economic and public health benefits. Biotechnology R&D is generally characterized by technologies requiring substantial investments in time, money, and effort to develop and sustain concepts through long incubation times. Public sponsorship of a partnership between two companies who would have not otherwise collaborated, Affymetrix and Molecular Dynamics, accelerated the development of DNA microarrays and DNA sequencing technologies and induced innovation at competitor firms. Public sponsorship of private-company research accelerated the completion of the Human Genome Project and improved both the quality and rapidity with which the biotechnology industry and medical science acquire genetic information. Counterfactual scenarios were used to quantify net public benefits by estimating the hypothetical costs of achieving the same outcomes as using the processes and technologies the ATP-cofunded innovations superseded.Technology infrastructure, Biotechnology, Case study, Induced innovation,