A new study published recently is bound to get some serious attention. Spanish researchers looked at over 500 studies that documented the effects of asthma drugs called inhaled corticosteroids: 275 studies weer funded by pharmaceutical companies (they called this group the PF studies; PF stands for Pharmaceutical Funding) and 229 were funded by other sources, such as government agencies and non-profit organizations (they called this group NoPF).

What they found was that 65.1% of the NoPF group found adverse effects of the drugs under study compared to only 34.5% of the studies in the PF group. This is a significant difference that is very worrying.

So the researchers dug a little bit deeper and found that the real difference between the PF and NoPF studies was how the studies were designed. This means that PF-type studies were more able to discern adverse outcomes.

Still, this is a correlation and definitely not a causation at the moment. What this means in reality is that many studies need to be done to be sure of the true effects of a drug. And when you hear the results of a study, always double check who funded the study. The authors called for the strengthening of disclosure of conflicts of interest, which should help.