Survey Says: Potential Bias, But Excellent Data Quality

Industry-funded research, particularly in the biomedical area, is often shunned as biased – the New York Times' John Tierney points to JAMA's stricter standards for research papers from industry as an example. However, a new study in the International Journal of Obesity that was funded by NIH analyzed data from 60 obesity treatment clinical trials and found that industry-supported research had better data quality than non-industry supported research. Adaptive Complexity's Michael White notes, "We shouldn't blindly reject non-academic biomedical research, but neither should we risk the public trust by failing to make the financial stakes involved in a study transparent."