Financial ties and concordance between results and conclusions in meta-analyses: retrospective cohort study
BMJPublished 16 November 2007Open access
Veronica Yank, Drummond Rennie, Lisa Bero
Citations232
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TL;DR
Meta-analyses on antihypertensive drugs and with financial ties to one drug company are not associated with favourable results but are associated with favorable conclusions.
Abstract
Meta-analyses on antihypertensive drugs and with financial ties to one drug company are not associated with favourable results but are associated with favourable conclusions.
Keywords
Decision SciencesEconomics, Econometrics and FinancePharmacology, Toxicology and Pharmaceutics
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