New research suggests manufacturers of newly developed antidepressant drugs have become more forthcoming about clinical trials that don’t pan out. While the new findings are encouraging, they still hint at a fundamental shortcoming in medicine: A reliance of studies selectively reported in scientific literature, as opposed to the unvarnished results of clinical trials reported to the Food and Drug Administration.

A new review and meta-analysis, published today in the journal PLOS Medicine, indicates that drug companies conducting clinical trials on new antidepressants have increased disclosure of clinical trials with negative outcomes, that is, trials that fail to show the drug is more effective than a placebo.

«Positive trials have always been reliably published, but negative trials, while common, have long been swept under the rug,» said lead author Erick Turner, M.D., associate professor of psychiatry in the Oregon Health & Science University School of Medicine.

This was shown compellingly in a landmark 2008 study published in The New England Journal of Medicine. The new study — an update of the 2008 study conducted by researchers from OHSU and around the world — shows a trend toward reporting negative trials more transparently.

The research shows things have changed since 2008, said co-author Andrea Cipriani, M.D., Ph.D., professor of psychiatry at the University of Oxford.

«Nowadays there is greater awareness of reporting bias in the scientific literature — not only in psychiatry but across all medicine — and there has been a cultural change: What was once standard practice is no longer considered acceptable,» Cipriani said. «Numerous policy changes have been implemented, which have played a major role in bringing about the increase in transparency.

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Materials provided by Oregon Health & Science University. Original written by Erik Robinson. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.