Errors and Omissions

Is there a safe and effective treatment for conflict of interest?

The Wall Street Journal reports the following:

A review of a new depression treatment published in a medical journal failed to disclose that the authors are consultants to the company that sells the treatment.

The review piece in this month's Neuropsychopharmacology comes to favorable conclusions about the treatment, called vagus nerve stimulation....

Of the nine authors, eight are academic researchers who are consultants for Cyberonics Inc., which makes the vagus nerve device. The ninth author is an employee of the company, which was disclosed....

and, finally,

The first author of the article, Charles B. Nemeroff of Emory University, is also the editor of Neuropsychopharmacology.

And guess what! The authors found the treatment to be effective.

I'm so depressed reading this that I'm going to head to my doctor for some vagus nerve stimulation. I'm certain that will help.

newspapers, media, errors, medicine

posted by Unknown @ 7/18/2006 02:33:00 PM