CANCER DRUGS: Just 5 per cent of studies funded by the pharmaceutical
 industry reached unfavourable conclusions about the companies' drugs
 compared with 38 per cent paid for by non-profit organisations. ( Journal
 of the American Medical Association , 1999)
 
CONTRACEPTIVE PILL: Three independent studies of "third generation"
 contraceptives - the subject of a safety scare in 1995 - found they caused
 a higher risk of blood clots. Three studies paid for by the drug industry
 did not. ( British Medical Journal 2000)
 
SMOKING: 106 reviews of whether passive smoking causes harm found 63 per
 cent concluded it was harmful and 37 per cent that it was harmless. The
 only factor that could be correlated with the conclusion was whether or not
 the author was affiliated to the tobacco industry.
 
HORMONE REPLACEMENT THERAPY: An early analysis of data from trials of HRT,
 published in the BMJ in 1997, suggested that HRT might increase the risk of
 cancer and heart deaths. Insults were heaped on the authors and the BMJ for
 publishing such "rubbish". In 2002, the Women's Health Initiative study
 confirmed that HRT doubled the risk of breast cancer and resulted in
 increased heart problems.
 
HEART DRUGS: The class of anti-arrhythmic drugs including Lidocaine and
 Flecainide introduced in the late 1970s that were given to patients with
 abnormal heart rhythm were estimated to be killing more Americans every
 year by 1990 than died in the Vietnam War.
 
Early evidence suggesting the drugs were lethal, which might have averted
 the catastrophe, was not published.
 
ARTHRITIS: Drugs are more often tested on a healthy population, in whom
 they cause fewer side-effects, than on the population that receives them.
 Only 2 per cent of patients in trials of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory
 drugs were aged over 65, even though the drugs are more commonly used by,
 and have a higher incid- ence of side-effects in, the elderly.
 
DRUG INDUSTRY SPENDING: The American pharmaceutical industry spent $16bn
 (£9bn) on promotion in 2000 and gave out a total of $7.2bn of free samples.
 Seventy-five per cent of trials published in four of the five major medical
 journals ( The Lancet, New England Journal of Medicine, Journal of the
 American Medical Association, Annals of Internal Medicine ) are sponsored
 by the pharmaceutical industry. In the fifth journal, the BMJ , it is 30
 per cent.
 
CONFLICTS OF INTEREST: An analysis of 789 articles from major journals
 found that a third of the lead authors had financial interests in their
 research in the form of patents, shares, or payments from the companies for
 being on advisory boards or working as a director.