Aug 20 2008

Industry funding has no effect on research quality!

I love the way sponsored science works. We now have data claiming that there is no difference in the quality of controlled clinical weight loss trials whether they are funded by industry or independently. The senior author on this comparative study is the very same person who was relieved of his responsibilities as head of a national obesity society because he wrote a letter opposing calorie labeling without disclosing that he was paid to do it (see previous post on this topic).  NIH paid for this study in part (the other parts aren’t attributed).  For this study, as the paper says, “Ethical approval is not required.”

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[...] Original post by What to Eat [...]

  • Sheila
  • August 21, 2008
  • 3:09 pm

Perhaps ethical approval is not required, but boy wouldn’t it be nice? Or, if not ethical approval, how about just good old fashioned ethical behavior? What happened to just doing the right thing because it was the right thing, regardless of whether there was somebody else around to give approval?

  • Carolyn
  • August 30, 2008
  • 7:34 pm

I am disturbed by how this is being reported and discussed. Is there something actually wrong with how this study is conducted? Or is it somehow “unethical” even to conduct such a study? This just seems like a case of “guilt by association” and of judging the outcome by whether you like the results or not. If CSPI did a similar study and found that industry-sponsorship affected the reporting of weight loss trials, would you be similarly skeptical, since CSPI benefits financially from making various sensationalistic claims? How about some scientific critique instead of just “oh I don’t like these results so they must be no good and even unethical.”

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