Study Finds That Medical Research is Often Wrong

Study Finds That Medical Research is Often Wrong

Study Finds That Medical Research is Often Wrong

Associated Press, Thursday, July 14, 2005

New research highlights a frustrating fact about science: What was good for you yesterday frequently will turn out to be not so great tomorrow.

The sobering conclusion came in a review of major studies published in three influential medical journals between 1990 and 2003, including 45 highly publicized studies that initially claimed a drug or other treatment worked.

Subsequent research contradicted results of seven studies ? 16 percent ? and reported weaker results for seven others, an additional 16 percent.

That means nearly one-third of the original results did not hold up, according to the report in Wednesday's Journal of the American Medical Association.

"Contradicted and potentially exaggerated findings are not uncommon in the most visible and most influential original clinical research," said study author Dr. John Ioannidis, a researcher at the University of Ioannina in Greece.

Ioannidis examined research in the New England Journal of Medicine, JAMA and Lancet ? prominent journals whose weekly studies help feed a growing public appetite for medical news.

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