Ben Djulbegovic wrote:
>Felice, this is a key (if not THE key) issue in modern practice of
>medicine (oncology including): WHAT should we study? In other words, who
>should be controlling the RESEARCH AGENDA? As you have alluded, there is
>increasing dissonance between what is studied and what is actually needed
>(by patients and practitoners like you and me). Sponsors typically favor
>generation of one type of evidence, while the users of evidence need
>different types of answers. Increasingly, calls are being made to define
>research priorities. Unfortunately, I don't see this happening any time
>soon. In the mean time, I am afraid you will be proved correct: we will
>have another permutation on the theme (of trastuzumab, in this case) with
>no real answers.
>I wonder what other folks on the list think about defining research
>priorities? Perhaps this list can help catalyze such a list and then share
>with the rest of scientific community? So, I am proposing that others
>respond to your challenge: in your field of interest, what is the research
>problem (priority) that you'd like to be addressed?
>thanks for your stimulating thoughts
Right, but aren't we pulling punches a bit here? Isn't the concern also
that some commercial sponsors are only interested in certain questions, and
are most interested if the answer comes out a certain way, i.e., favoring
their commercial interests? This was the issue raised by the article by
Richard Smith in PLoS Medicine:
http://medicine.plosjournals.org/perlserv?request=get-document&doi=10.1371/journal.pmed.0020138
(Admittedly, other kinds of sponsors may also be driven by financial and
ideological interests into favoring other kinds of questions, but have not
been often accused of also trying to manipulate the research and its
dissemination to produce particular answers.)
Roy M. Poses MD
Clinical Associate Professor
Brown University School of Medicine
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