Spinning negative RCTs

---is very common, according to a presentation at the 2009 International Congress on Peer Review and Biomedical Publication. Comments from the presenter:

"We should be really careful about the way people present and conclude their articles. And for academics, they should be very careful about the way they write articles. I often work with principle investigators in writing their articles, and I always need to calm them down, because they believe that their treatments work and they try to frame the results in a specific way."

Considering all the negative studies that are buried as a result of publication bias this may be the tip of the iceberg, and it’s about much more than industry influence. Academic careers and reputations are at stake, and, besides, investigators just want to believe their treatments work.