Therapeutics Initiative’s Best Evidence Webinar: Reporting bias with antidepressants and beyond: Where are we on the road to transparency?

Dr. Erick Turner is a psychiatrist who previously worked at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), reviewing applications from drug companies seeking to get their psychotropic drugs approved for the US market. There he learned that much efficacy and safety data does not get communicated transparently to doctors and patients. After coming to Oregon Health & Science University, he began publishing on reporting biases. His best-known paper, entitled “Selective Publication of Antidepressant Trials and Its Influence on Apparent Efficacy”, was published in the New England Journal of Medicine and is now in the 99.9th percentile with respect to citations by other articles and books.

Learning Objectives:

1. Review the evidence for reporting bias with clinical trials, with a focus on antidepressants.
2. Examine whether the level of reporting bias shows signs of improving and, if so, what policy changes may have contributed.
3. Learn how the peer review process can be modified to essentially eliminate this problem.