Publication Bias in Clinical Research

This post on Outsourcing-Pharma.com discusses how a team of researchers looked at 90 drug applications involving over 900 different clinical trials between the years of 1998 and 2000, and then identified whether or not the study had been published.

What researchers discovered is that when drugs performed relatively well the trial was more likely to be published in medical journals within the following five years. Drugs did not perform as well, were not as likely to be published in medical journals. Overall, 43 percent of all trials conducted were later published in medical journals. 66% of trials that had significant findings in support of the drug were published whereas the rate dropped down to 36% for trials that did not support the drug.