Published clinical trials shown to be misleading

Comparison of internal and public reports about Pfizer’s drug Neurontin reveals many discrepancies

Editor’s note: This story was updated on January 31 with comment from Pfizer.

A rare peek into drug company documents reveals troubling differences between publicly available information and materials the company holds close to its chest. In comparing public and private descriptions of drug trials conducted by pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, researchers discovered discrepancies including changes in the number of study participants and inconsistent definitions of protocols and analyses.