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LETTER TO THE EDITOR

Ethics, Marketing, and the Medical Literature

Professor and Holder of the Margaret Milam McDermott Distinguished Chair in Anesthesiology, Department of Anesthesiology & Pain Management, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas, Dallas, Texas, paul.white{at}utsouthwestern.edu

In Response:

Drs. Mychaskiw, Badr and Calimaran have made an important point (1) about the study by Meyer et al. (2) and their subsequent reply (3) to my Letter to the Editor (4) about a conflict of interest. Although the authors of this manuscript attempted to rationalize the "short comings" of their study (3), the fact remains that this publication raises serious ethical issues for the authors as well as for the pharmaceutical company that funded the study. In my opinion, the use of the article by Tunis et al. (5) to "justify" a serious flaw in the study design only compounds these concerns (4).

Ideally, contributing authors, sponsors, and peer-reviewed journals like Anesthesia & Analgesia will more carefully scrutinize manuscripts in the future to avoid publishing potentially biased manuscripts with an apparent conflict of interest.

References

1. Mychaskiw G, Badr AE, Calimaran AM. Ethics, marketing and the medical literature. Anesth Analg 2006;103:488.[Free Full Text]
2. Meyer TA, Robertson CR, Rajab MH, et al. Dolasetron versus ondansetron for the treatment of postoperative nausea and vomiting. Anesth Analg 2005;100:373–7.[Abstract/Free Full Text]
3. Robertson CR, Meyer TA. Treatment of postoperative nausea and vomiting with dolasetron versus ondansetron: is there a conflict of interest? Anesth Analg 2005;101:1887–8.[Free Full Text]
4. White PF. Treatment of postoperative nausea and vomiting with dolasetron versus ondansetron: is there a conflict of interest? Anesth Analg 2005;101:1887.[Free Full Text]
5. Tunis SR, Stryer DB, Clancy CM. Practical clinical trials: increasing the value of clinical research for decision making in clinical and health policy. JAMA 2003;290: 1624–32.[Abstract/Free Full Text]

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