… [Of] 29 reviews, or “meta-analyses,” of earlier drug trials — culled from top journals like JAMA and The Lancet — only two reported who had funded the original trials included in the review.
And none of the reviews mentioned whether the authors reporting on those trials had been paid by drugmakers.
… [M]ore than two-thirds of the original drug trials that ended up being included in the 29 reviews were funded by pharmaceutical companies.
Only 318 of the 509 trials reviewed gave the conflict-of-interest information in the first place.
… When the [research] team contacted the reviewers, the majority admitted they hadn’t even looked at the issue.