[Expez]

I just listened to the book Bad Pharma, by Ben Goldacre, which deals with this problem. The author works as a doctor and so has a bit of an inside view of how the industry does 'science' and how this affects doctors and patients.

The lack of published negative results isn't a problem unique to pharma but the drive for profits and the actual life and death outcomes makes it particular severe in this area of science, I think.

I highly recommend the book, it was both hilarious and terrifying.

[sanxiyn]

I must note that according to the linked article, "pharma’s record has been markedly better than that of academia and the federal government". It's academia that is not reporting results, not industry.

[hannob]

That's an illogical conclusion.

Both don't always report results. Academia is worse. That doesn't make the industry good in any way.

[tracker1]

How often are private companies paying at least in part for this research... also, since academia is abusing the patent system as much as everyone else, it's kind of expected.

[CodeWriter23]

How many studies from academia are actually industry-funded studies by proxy? Given all the pharma-funding of academia, I suspect the answer is non-zero.

[Angostura]

Don’t forget to support Ben’s campaign to change this. https://www.alltrials.net/

[ekianjo]

There is also an opportunity for public databases of patient outcomes (post marketing) that we would all greatly benefit from. A lot of that data is still discussed behind closed doors and authorities are also to blame because it is their prerogative to force data to be open if they wish to.

[pintxo]

We are working on it, but financing seems to be tricky for such an endeavor.

[jcims]

Sounds like a FUD magnet but I agree there would be major upside. Edit: To clarify, publishing individual patient outcomes publicly could pretty easily be spun as a privacy risk to trial participants and/or have a chilling effect on enrollment.

I’m personally invested in seeing something like this happen but if not approached defensively it could be vulnerable to getting shot down and made an example of.

[avip]

I'd also recommend his TED talks which are really amusing and educating.

https://www.ted.com/talks/ben_goldacre_battling_bad_science

https://www.ted.com/talks/ben_goldacre_what_doctors_don_t_kn...

[rjmunro]

The article states "based on data collected from the TrialsTracker website of the University of Oxford", which is Ben Goldacre's project.