ACADEMIC researchers backed by biomedical companies are much more likely to produce pro-industry findings than are independent groups, according to the most comprehensive study yet of the impact of funding sources on clinical research.
Academics’ increasing reliance on support from industry has prompted growing disquiet, with a British poll published this week by the Social Research Institute at the University of East Anglia suggesting that 60 per cent of the public believes this threatens scientific independence.
Those concerns may be well-founded, according to Cary Gross and his team at the Yale University School of Medicine, who have reviewed all English-language…
