WSJ.com - Reading Fine Print, Insurers Question Studies of Drugs

This is a truly excellent artricle, which illustrates how pharm companies are able to get papers published in peer reviewed journals, that are laden with spin...and how difficult it is to really analyze the data. It takes alot of time, attention to detail, and a strong background in statistics at a minimum.

In my own area of vitreoretinal disease, I spend hours reading original studies on drugs for macular degeneration and trying to find the loopholes in study design, results, conclusions etc. It is extremely difficult to get through the spin. Yet patients not uncommonly come in stating that they want a treatment based on a one page ad in the newspaper or a 30 second TV ad...

If you don't subscribe to the wall street journal, let me know...

WSJ.com - Reading Fine Print, Insurers Question Studies of Drugs:

As the cost of drugs in the U.S. approaches $250 billion a year, pharmaceutical companies are running up against a growing breed of detective trained to see through marketing spin. Working for insurers, state Medicaid programs and nonprofit bodies, these detectives cast a wary eye on published studies in medical journals, once considered an unimpeachable source. They search for subtle aspects of clinical-trial design that might show the drugs are not all they're cracked up to be.

'You could be duped,' says Siri Childs, who oversees pharmacy policy for the Washington state Medicaid program. 'We know now that just because it's published in a medical journal, that doesn't assure its quality.'

...

When Dr. Kubota started her current job in 1997, she says she "would just read the abstract," the summary at the beginning of a study. "I guess I was naive," she says. "You kind of assume everything is there for you in the abstract." Today, she quickly homes in on details that aren't mentioned in the abstract and generates a 6-inch stack of papers studded with Post-it notes for each drug...

Some journals are trying themselves to help readers discover marketing messages slipped in amid the scientific data. Last year BMJ, a British journal, published a piece called "Users' guide to detecting misleading claims in clinical research reports," which came with a picture of a reader dumping salt on a medical journal. One piece of advice: Beware when the authors break out one subgroup of patients and claim benefits from the treatment that weren't evident in the whole group.