[From the article “Congratulations. Your Study Went Nowhere” by Aaron Carroll, published at http://www.nytimes.com]

“When we think of biases in research, the one that most often makes the news is a researcher’s financial conflict of interest. But another bias, one possibly even more pernicious, is how research is published and used in supporting future work.”

“A recent study in Psychological Medicine examined how four of these types of biases came into play in research on antidepressants.” 

“… Publication bias refers to the decision on whether to publish results based on the outcomes found. “

“… Outcome reporting bias refers to writing up only the results in a trial that appear positive, while failing to report those that appear negative.” 

“… Spin refers to using language, often in the abstract or summary of the study, to make negative results appear positive.”

“… Research becomes amplified by citation in future papers. The more it’s discussed, the more it’s disseminated both in future work and in practice. Positive studies were cited three times more than negative studies. This is citation bias.”

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