Medical Research Issues
The Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine published a paper expressing concerns about benzodiazepine receptor agonist drugs, the benzodiazepines and the Z-drugs that are used as hypnotics in humans. The paper cites a systematic review of the medical literature concerning insomnia medications and states that almost all trials of sleep disorders and drugs are sponsored by the pharmaceutical industry while this is not the case in general medicine or psychiatry. It cites another study that "found that the odds ratio for finding results favorable to industry in industry-sponsored trials was 3.6 times as high as in non–industry-sponsored studies". Issues discussed regarding industry-sponsored studies include: comparison of a drug to a placebo, but not to an alternative treatment; unpublished studies with unfavorable outcomes; and trials organized around a placebo baseline followed by drug treatment, but not counterbalanced with parallel-placebo-controlled studies. Quoting a 1979 report that there was then, too, little research into hypnotics that was independent of the drug manufacturers, the authors conclude that "the public desperately needs an equipoised assessment of hypnotic benefits and risks" and that the NIH and VA should provide leadership to that end.
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