On 11/3/2010 5:57 AM, Jon Brassey wrote:
> The solution seems to be to stop the bloat of papers and do much less
> research that is better focused and has better outcomes and run for long
> enough. The phrase 'less is more' springs to mind!
I've often advocated doing less research, and trying harder to get large
multicenter trials in place of a bunch of small single center trials. It
takes more work, but is far better than using meta-analysis to try to
patch together a bunch of small studies with different protocols
> Also, given that this is ostensibly an academic list does
> the notion of academia being a problem/conflicted in EBM/EBHC meet with
> approval or horror? I appreciate I'm open to accusations of naivety (it
> hardly be the first time) but it the theme of academic conflicts was
> strong and came from multiple people (way more prominent than me)!
Given the tendency of universities these days to patent their new
innovations, there is indeed a tendency for greater financial conflicts
of interest in academic research.
I also believe, though, that a financial conflict of interest is not a
fatal flaw. If you manage the project carefully, you can still get
credible results, even if the P.I. has a financial conflict of interest.
You have to pre-specify as much as you can in the protocol, document any
inevitable changes in the protocol and show that they were not driven by
an attempt to bias the results, place the decisions about early stopping
in the hands of a committee with no financial conflicts, and insure
adequate ethical and scientific review of the research.
If you're talking about non-financial conflicts of interest (such as the
tendency of researchers to inflate the magnitude of a problem to
increase their own standing in the research community), I believe that
this is largely a smokescreen put up by people who have financial
conflicts to try to make it look like everyone is conflicted. You can't
totally ignore non-financial conflicts, but financial conflicts are far
more serious.
--
Steve Simon, Standard Disclaimer
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