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JAMA study finds that you can't trust JAMA studies

I always love when the Wall Street Journal runs stories critical of the pharmaceutical biz because it justifies my paranoia about taking newer prescription drugs. Last week's report on worrisome medical journal articles is no exception. A recent study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association basically concluded that doctors and other medical professionals can't trust sources like...the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Why? Because the authors of JAMA articles, who are often funded by drug companies, have a strong tendency to leave out inconvenient details about drugs' safety and efficacy... but no surprise there. The real shocker is that the clinical trials detailed in medical journals were usually designed for purposes other than what the authors describe. In other words, the "scientists" conducting clinical trials will start off testing a drug for, say, its effect on chorelsterol levels; once they find out it's not working, they'll switch gears and come up with a different end-goal -- for instance, lowering the risk of stroke -- and never report the change.

The journals, for their part, like to point the finger at individual scientists, but they really should be taking a serious look at their conflict-of-interest policies.