The WSJ jumps on the bandwagon against the NEJM, as discussed in the blogosphere last week:
At what cost do political machinations of the medical journals come? NEJM editors have long favored more drug regulation. But medical journals have also historically played a special role in helping to define medical practice standards. Even decisions they make on how prominently to place a study, let alone how they editorialize about it, are seen as strong signals to clinicians on how doctors should weigh the evidence. So when editors pursue a political agenda, it’s public health that pays a price. Degrading an institution that doctors depend on for balanced analysis and fair-minded editorial judgments isn’t good for anyone.In the case of the Avandia study, NEJM editors gave short shrift to the study’s flaws. The paper, which re-analyzed the results of 42 earlier studies of the drug found on the Internet, revealed that Avandia might cause a small increase in the absolute risk of a heart attack. But the study that the authors did, called a “meta-analysis” because it aggregates results from lots of studies to generate a larger sample, contained a number of serious limitations.
Related posts:
- Avandia: The NEJM is "becoming more like British tabloid newspapers"
- Avandia: Malpractice by the NEJM?
- The left-leaning NEJM
- Avandia and meta-analysis
- Avandia: The RECORD study
- COURAGE trial: The NEJM strikes back
- Did the Avandia scare harm patients, and is Steven Nissen to blame?
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