‘Tricks to help you get the result you want from your study (S4BE)
Inspired by a chapter in Ben Goldacre’s ‘Bad Science’, medical student Sam Marks shows you how to fiddle research results.
Key Concepts addressed:- 1-1 Treatments can harm
- 1-7 Beware of conflicting interests
- 2-2 Comparison groups should be similar
- 2-4 Comparison groups should be treated equally
- 2-7 All should be followed up
- 2-17 Don’t confuse “statistical significance” with “importance”
Details
I thought about giving this blog a more sensible title. Something like “things to look out for when reading a paper on a clinical trial”. But, I needed to get your attention, didn’t I….
Let’s set the scene: An increasing number of clinical trials are funded by the pharmaceutical industry.
But this is clearly problematic. In 2012, a Cochrane Review including 49 studies, found that industry-sponsored studies testing drugs and medical devices more often favour the sponsor’s products than non-industry sponsored studies. Read more