Further reading
Altman DG. The scandal of poor medical research. BMJ 1994; 308 https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.308.6924.283
Daly, A., Treweek, S., Hayes, G.S., Shiely F.. Tolerating bad health research (part 2): still as many bad trials, but more good ones too. Trials 2025, 26: 110. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13063-025-08747-4
Glasziou P, Chalmers IC. Research waste is still a scandal—an essay by Paul Glasziou and Iain Chalmers. BMJ. 2018;363:k4645. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.k4645
Hulstaert, F., Harrison, J., Nevens, H. et al. Good clinical trial funding practices: how can public funders reduce the risk of trial failure and improve health impact? Trials 2026; 27, 194 2026. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13063-026-09511-y
Pirosca S, Shiely F, Clarke M, Treweek S. Tolerating bad health research: the continuing scandal. Trials 2022, 23: 458. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13063-022-06415-5
Van Calster B, Wynants L, Riley RD, van Smeden M, Collins GS. Methodology over metrics: current scientific standards are a disservice to patients and society. J Clin Epidemiol. 2021;S0895-4356(21)00170-0. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclinepi.2021.05.018.
Zarin DA, Goodman SN, Kimmelman J. Harms From Uninformative Clinical Trials. JAMA. 2019; 322(9):813-814. https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.2019.9892
Funding
This work was funded by the Gates Foundation, grant INV-067716. The findings and conclusions contained within are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect positions or policies of the Gates Foundation.