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Comment by alexandercrohde | Hacker News Reader

Just to make super explicit why this isn't even a little bit okay, there's a very sordid history of corporations influencing research (even federal research).

Before lead was put into gasoline two health studies were conducted by the government, but the relevant industries (including DuPont) had influence over the research. Both studies found leaded gasoline was totally safe. Low and behold it reduced the IQ of an entire generation around 3 points (best estimate).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetraethyllead

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Obviously alcohol isn't as damning as lead, but if funded research can declare lead safe it seems like it could conclude anything.

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Don't forget about Coke funding the cancer scare research on diet drinks last century! A brilliant and disgustingly immoral scare tactic.

http://mentalfloss.com/article/76881/tragic-history-rc-cola

wait why? didn't they also produce diet drinks?

Perhaps corn syrup/sugar is cheaper than low-calorie alternatives, with the assumption people won't eliminate sodas, only whether they pick diet/non-diet

Because RC Cola was beating them by a tonne in the market because of their sugar-alternative. The article I linked has a tonne of info on it if you read down a bit.

So none of these studies can be read and reviewed on their own without knowing who is behind the study. How can a supplement company ever do a study on it's efficacy if it's going to get shot down because they sponsored it.

They don't. It's a conflict of interest. You don't get to have a stake in your own investigation.

But then what do they do? Cross their fingers and wait for some random researchers to take an interest in their product? Sure, if the product becomes popular then it might attract research, but what if barely anyone tries your product because there's no research on it? Am I missing something or is this a catch-22?

I used to think it was corrupt for companies to sponsor research on their own products. Then one day it occurred to me: who else is going to care about a product (especially one that's relatively unknown) more than the company trying to sell it?

What was the last supplement you saw that was patentable?

Supplements in general are vaguely effective and mostly unpatented, meaning that the only incentive for a supplement company to perform "research" is for the purpose of marketing that they have some sort of research, but it's against the law for them to say that their supplements do anything specific outside the vague "bone health" etc. claims.

Don't get me wrong, I take various supplements daily, but I'm also fully aware of how sketchy this industry is, especially where there are herbal supplements that were out there found not to contain any genetic material of the herbs the bottle was advertising.

That's true, but I intended my comment to apply more generally to products of any kind. I'll reword it.

I just checked the website of the only supplement I take

https://www.onnit.com/patents/

Not quite.

If you come up with a supplement to aid in sleeping, it's fine to conduct a study and use it in marketing to say hey, studies have shown it helps you sleep at night.

The matter becomes grayer when there are concerns about the safety of a product. I'm personally willing to trust your study that your supplement aids with sleeping, but I don't trust that you're disclosing that your test subjects also all died of cancer. You have an interest in hiding the downside of your findings to sell more product.

Put another way, the NRA's studies would find nothing wrong with arming every American man, woman and child-- for their own protection! Their interest is in selling guns. That owning a gun increases your chances of accidental death by x% is likely not a fact they will share with you.

> but I don't trust that you're disclosing that your test subjects also all died of cancer.

I might be wrong but I think this would be illegal

also, Not quite sure what you are suggesting.

> How can a supplement company ever do a study on it's efficacy

> They don't. It's a conflict of interest.

> it's fine to conduct a study and use it in marketing to say hey, studies have shown it helps you sleep at night.

You're right. The conflicts should be announced at the beginning of the article/presentation. That's what's supposed to happen anyways.

I'm unclear what your point is. Anybody can do a study on their own product, and anybody can lie in a study. The question is to the consumer, how much are we going to trust a particular study?

This is why there are clear rules about putting funding sources in the study, and it seems like the NIH violated this deliberately.

Study is not scientific if it can't be peer reviewed without knowing funding sources.

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