Maybe this quote from a review of Marcia Angell's book supports the way you see it: "A quarter of academic scientists now have financial ties to industry: Companies woo them with invitations to sit on scientific advisory committees (for a salary, of course), lucrative consulting contracts, and stock options potentially worth millions of dollars." Maybe instead of just disclosing financial ties, reserchers should also be made to tell the importance of them (e.g. how much money they have received from a drug company during the past five(?) years, the amount of drug company stocks and/or stock options owned by the researcher, etc). It might help us to evaluate if authors of a study really have had bias or not.Lyon wrote:I suppose since the researchers disclose their financial interests we shouldn't doubt the findings of the studies, but I'm afraid it always makes me wonder. Considering the situation, I think, researchers should be required to post conflict of interest information at the end of their abstract.
True. The article was quite thorough and unbiased summary of the current situation in MS-research. Naturally I have just concentrated on picking up quotes that support my point of view. In any case, I'd say this is the most important quote: "It is hotly debated whether a primary neuronal or axonal process could lead to WM demyelination as opposed to WM demyelination leading to secondary axonal and neuronal damage."Lyon wrote:I don't consider it to injure your argument that the body of the Lucchinetti article actually only mentions that it's currently contentious as to whether inflammation or neurodegeneration is first and actually doesn't specifically address that particular aspect much.
I suppose the debate will continue...
-finn