Medicine is plagued by untrustworthy clinical trials. How many studies are faked or flawed? (Nature, 18 July 2023)

Summary

Investigations suggest that, in some fields, at least one-quarter of clinical trials might be problematic or even entirely made up. This article in Nature looks at the findings of researchers who have been studying clinical trials and calling for greater regulatory scrutiny.

It particularly examines the work of John Carlisle, NHS anaesthetist and editor at the journal Anaesthesia, who scrutinised over 500 studies with randomised controlled trials, over a period of three years. Carlisle found that 26% of the papers had problems that were so widespread that the trial was impossible to trust, either because the authors were incompetent or because they had faked the data. He called these ‘zombie’ trials because they had the semblance of real research, but closer scrutiny showed they were masquerading as reliable information.