The bias for publishing positive clinical-research results can cause physicians to question journal articles as dependable sources of product information.
Institutional review boards (IRBs) have the responsibility to ensure the protection of human-research subjects and are legally liable if they fail to do so.
Specific contributions to a scientific article entitle the contributor to be included as an author; requests for authorship by those who have not made those specific contributions are unethical.
Physicians should encourage pharmaceutical companies to make socially responsible funding decisions and take an active role in setting biomedical research priorities by advocating for fair and effective allocations of public and private biomedical R & D investments.
A Canadian physician reports there is systematic bias to the outcome of published research funded by the pharmaceutical industry and believes more steps need to be taken to improve the integrity of clinical research reports in the United States and Canada.