If a new survey is any indication, hospital review boards supervising patient experiments aren't nearly as independent as they should be. The study, which was published this week in the New England Journal of Medicine, surveyed the 575 members of review boards at 100 university medical centers. Researchers found that one in three hospital review board members had taken money from the makers of drugs and devices that are studied by their institutions. About 15 percent of the respondents said that within the last year, they'd been asked to review a research study sponsored by a company that had given them money, or a company that competed with those that had given them money. Worse, board members seldom disclose these relationships.
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ALSO: Other research suggests that very few patients worry about potential financial ties between researchers, institutions and the drug companies backing studies. Article