Doctors found to lack trust in drug company studies

Doctors are less likely to trust research studies performed with funding from corporate interests such as pharmaceutical companies, according to a new study. The report, published this week in the New England Journal of Medicine, reveals a long-suspected bias against such research among physicians. It also demonstrates the price companies have paid for public violations of trust, including examples of data manipulation and misrepresentation of study results. Within each category, a doctor's trust in the results was heavily influenced by the source of funding: They were only half as willing to prescribe drugs studied in industry-funded trials as compared with NIH-funded studies.