Many Avandia defenders have drug co. ties: study

A team at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, pored through more than 200 scientific studies and commentaries that offered positive opinions about the drug after a May 2007 study suggested Avandia significantly increased the risk of heart attacks…

"It was almost three to four times more likely that somebody who had a relationship with a pharmaceutical company had a favorable opinion about the medication," Dr Victor Montori of the Mayo Clinic, whose study appears in the British Medical Journal, said in a telephone interview.

Reuters, by Julie Steenhuysen, 3/19/2010