Dataset Information

Press releases issued by supplements industry organisations and non-industry organisations in response to publication of clinical research findings: a case-control study.

ABSTRACT: BACKGROUND: Dietary supplement use is increasing despite lack of evidence of benefits, or evidence of harm. Press releases issued by the supplements industry might contribute to this situation by using 'spin' (strategies to hype or denigrate findings) to distort the results of clinical studies. We assessed press releases issued in response to publication of clinical studies on dietary supplements. METHODS AND FINDINGS: We analyzed 47 supplements industry press releases and 91 non-industry press releases and news stories, generated in response to 46 clinical studies of dietary supplements published between 1/1/2005 and 5/31/2013. The primary outcome was 'spin' content and direction. We also assessed disposition towards use of dietary supplements, reporting of study information, and dissemination of industry press releases. More supplements industry press releases (100%) contained 'spin' than non-industry media documents (55%, P<0.001). Hyping 'spin' scores were higher in industry than non-industry media documents for studies reporting benefit of supplements (median 'spin' score 3.3, 95% CI 1.0-5.5 vs 0.5, 0-1.0; P<0.001). Denigratory 'spin' scores were higher in industry than non-industry media documents for studies reporting no effect (6.0, 5.0-7.0 vs 0, 0-0; P<0.001) or harm (6.0, 5.5-7.5 vs 0, 0-0.5; P<0.001) from a supplement. Industry press releases advocated supplement use in response to >90% of studies that reported no benefit, or harm, of the supplement. Industry press releases less frequently reported study outcomes, sample size, and estimates of effect size than non-industry media documents (all P<0.001), particularly for studies that reported no benefit of supplements. Industry press releases were referenced by 148 news stories on the websites of 6 organizations that inform manufacturers, retailers and consumers of supplements. CONCLUSIONS: Dietary supplements industry press releases issued in response to clinical research findings are characterized by 'spin' that hypes results that are favourable to supplement use and denigrates results that are not.

SUBMITTER: Wang MT

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4081644 | biostudies-literature | 2014

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Press releases issued by supplements industry organisations and non-industry organisations in response to publication of clinical research findings: a case-control study.

Wang Michael T M MT Gamble Greg G Bolland Mark J MJ Grey Andrew A

PloS one 20140703 7

<h4>Background</h4>Dietary supplement use is increasing despite lack of evidence of benefits, or evidence of harm. Press releases issued by the supplements industry might contribute to this situation by using 'spin' (strategies to hype or denigrate findings) to distort the results of clinical studies. We assessed press releases issued in response to publication of clinical studies on dietary supplements.<h4>Methods and findings</h4>We analyzed 47 supplements industry press releases and 91 non-in ...[more]

PMID: 24992571

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Project description:OBJECTIVE:To gather information about current practices and implementation of publication guidelines among publication professionals working in or for the pharmaceutical industry. DESIGN/SETTING:Web-based survey publicised via email and social media to members of the International Society for Medical Publication Professionals (ISMPP) and other organisations from November 2012 to February 2013. PARTICIPANTS:469 individuals involved in publishing industry-sponsored research in peer-reviewed journals, mainly working in pharmaceutical or device companies ('industry', n=144), communication agencies ('agency', n=238), contract research organisations (CRO, n=15) or as freelancers (n=34). Most respondents (78%) had worked on medical publications for ?5 years and 62% had a PhD/MD. RESULTS:Over 90% of industry, agency and CRO respondents routinely refer to Good Publication Practice (GPP2) and the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors' Uniform Requirements. Most respondents (78% industry, 79% agency) received mandatory training on ethical publication practices. Over 90% of respondents' companies had publication guidelines or policies and required medical writing support to be acknowledged in publications (96% industry, 99% agency). Many industry respondents used publication management tools to monitor compliance with company guidelines and about half (46%) stated that their company had formal publication audits. Fewer agencies audited adherence to guidelines but 20% of agency respondents reported audits of employees and 6% audits of freelancers. Of concern, 37% of agency respondents reported requests from authors or sponsors that they believed were unethical, although 93% of these requests were withdrawn after respondents explained the need for compliance with guidelines. Most respondents' departments (63% industry, 58% agency, 60% CRO) had been involved in publishing studies with negative or inconclusive results. CONCLUSIONS:Within this sample, most publication professionals working in or for industry were aware of, and applying, major publication guidelines. However, the survey also identified specific areas where education and promotion of guidelines are needed to ensure ethical publication practices.

Project description:BackgroundExaggerated or simplistic news is often blamed for adversely influencing public health. However, recent findings suggested many exaggerations were already present in university press releases, which scientists approve. Surprisingly, these exaggerations were not associated with more news coverage. Here we test whether these two controversial results also arise in press releases from prominent science and medical journals. We then investigate the influence of mitigating caveats in press releases, to test assumptions that caveats harm news interest or are ignored.Methods and findingsUsing quantitative content analysis, we analyzed press releases (N = 534) on biomedical and health-related science issued by leading peer-reviewed journals. We similarly analysed the associated peer-reviewed papers (N = 534) and news stories (N = 582). Main outcome measures were advice to readers and causal statements drawn from correlational research. Exaggerations in press releases predicted exaggerations in news (odds ratios 2.4 and 10.9, 95% CIs 1.3 to 4.5 and 3.9 to 30.1) but were not associated with increased news coverage, consistent with previous findings. Combining datasets from universities and journals (996 press releases, 1250 news), we found that when caveats appeared in press releases there was no reduction in journalistic uptake, but there was a clear increase in caveats in news (odds ratios 9.6 and 9.5 for caveats for advice and causal claims, CIs 4.1 to 24.3 and 6.0 to 15.2). The main study limitation is its retrospective correlational nature.ConclusionsFor health and science news directly inspired by press releases, the main source of both exaggerations and caveats appears to be the press release itself. However we find no evidence that exaggerations increase, or caveats decrease, the likelihood of news coverage. These findings should be encouraging for press officers and scientists who wish to minimise exaggeration and include caveats in their press releases.

Project description:BACKGROUND:It has been well established that research is not addressing health needs in a balanced way - much more research is conducted on diseases with more burden in high-income countries than on those with more burden in lower-income countries. In this study, we explore whether these imbalances persist and inquire about the possible influence of three factors, namely geography, industry and publication incentives. METHODS:We use WHO data on the Global Burden of Disease as a proxy measure of health needs and bibliometric information as a proxy for research efforts. Scientific publications on diseases were collected from MEDLINE using MeSH terms to identify relevant publications. We used Web of Science to collect author affiliations and citation data. We developed a correspondence table between WHO ICD-10 and MeSH descriptors to compare global health needs and research efforts. This correspondence table is available as supplementary material. RESULTS:Research output is heavily concentrated in high-income countries and is mainly focused on their health needs, resulting in a relative lack of attention to diseases in lower income countries. A new finding is that diseases with a similar burden in high- and middle-income countries are also under-researched, both globally and in relation to disease burden in high- and middle-income countries. Global industrial R&D is found to be very similar to the focus of public research. Diseases more prevalent in high-income countries generate ten-fold more research attention than those in low-income countries. We find no discernible preference towards diseases of high-income countries versus those of low-income countries in the top 25% most prestigious journals. However, in middle-income countries, citation rates are substantially lower for diseases most prevalent in low- and middle-income countries. CONCLUSIONS:From a global perspective, the imbalance between research needs and research efforts persists as most of the research effort concentrates on diseases affecting high-income countries. Both pharmaceutical companies and the public sector also tend to focus on diseases with more burden in high-income countries. Our findings indicate that researchers in middle-income countries receive more citations when researching diseases more prevalent in high-income countries, and this may divert the attention of researchers in these countries from diseases more prevalent in their contexts.

Project description:Previously, we reviewed 1052 randomized-controlled trial abstracts presented at the American Society of Anesthesiologists annual meetings from 2001-2004. We found significant positive publication bias in the period examined, with the odds ratio for abstracts with positive results proceeding to journal publication over those with null results being 2.01 [95% confidence interval: 1.52, 2.66; P < 0.001]. Mandatory trial registration was introduced in 2005 as a required standard for publication. We sought to examine whether mandatory trial registration has decreased publication bias in the anesthesia and perioperative medicine literature. We reviewed all abstracts from the 2010-2016 American Society of Anesthesiologists meetings that reported on randomized-controlled trials in humans. We scored the result of each abstract as positive or null according to a priori definitions. We systematically searched for any subsequent publication of the studies and calculated the odds ratio for journal publication, comparing positive vs null studies. We compared the odds ratio from the 2010-2016 abstracts (post-mandatory trial registration) with the odds ratio from the 2001-2004 abstracts (pre-mandatory trial registration) as a ratio of odds ratios. We defined a 33% decrease in the odds ratio as significant, corresponding to a new odds ratio of 1.33. We reviewed 9789 abstracts; 1049 met inclusion criteria as randomized-controlled trials, with 542 (51.7%) of the abstracts going on to publication. The odds ratio for abstracts with positive results proceeding to journal publication was 1.28 [95% CI: 0.97, 1.67; P = 0.076]. With adjustment for sample size and abstract quality, the difference in publication rate between positive and null abstracts was statistically significant (odds ratio 1.34; 95% CI: 1.02, 1.76; P = 0.037). The ratio of odds ratios, comparing the odds ratio from the 2010-2016 abstracts (post-mandatory trial registration) to the odds ratio from the 2001-2004 abstracts (pre-mandatory trial registration), was 0.63 (95% CI: 0.43, 0.93); P = 0.021). We present the first study in the anesthesia and perioperative medicine literature that examines and compares publication bias over two discrete periods of time, prior to and after the implementation of mandatory trial registration. Our results suggest that the amount of publication bias has decreased markedly following implementation of mandatory trial registration. However, some positive publication bias in the anesthesia and perioperative medicine literature remains.

Dataset Information

Press releases issued by supplements industry organisations and non-industry organisations in response to publication of clinical research findings: a case-control study.

Publications

Press releases issued by supplements industry organisations and non-industry organisations in response to publication of clinical research findings: a case-control study.

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