The relationship between study sponsorship, risks of bias, and research outcomes in atrazine exposure studies conducted in non-human animals: Systematic review and meta-analysis
Open accessAbstract
Background A critical component of systematic review methodology is the assessment of the risks of bias of studies that are included in the review. There is controversy about whether funding source should be included in a risk of bias assessment of animal toxicology studies. Objective To determine whether industry research sponsorship is associated with methodological biases, the results, or conclusions of animal studies examining the effect of exposure to atrazine on reproductive or developmental outcomes. Methods We searched multiple electronic databases and the reference lists of relevant articles to identify original research studies examining the effect of any dose of atrazine exposure at any life stage on reproduction or development in non-human animals. We compared methodological risks of bias, the conclusions of the studies, the statistical significance of the findings, and the magnitude of effect estimates between industry sponsored and non-industry sponsored studies. Results Fifty-one studies met the inclusion criteria. There were no differences in methodological risks of bias in industry versus non-industry sponsored studies. 39 studies tested environmentally relevant concentrations of atrazine (11 industry sponsored, 24 non-industry sponsored, 4 with no funding disclosures). Non-industry sponsored studies (12/24, 50.0%) were more likely to conclude that atrazine was harmful compared to industry sponsored studies (2/11, 18.1%) (p value=0.07). A higher proportion of non-industry sponsored studies reported statistically significant harmful effects (8/24, 33.3%) compared to industry-sponsored studies (1/11; 9.1%) (p value=0.13). The association of industry sponsorship with decreased effect sizes for harm outcomes was inconclusive. Conclusion Our findings support the inclusion of research sponsorship as a risk of bias criterion in tools used to assess risks of bias in animal studies for systematic reviews. The reporting of other empirically based risk of bias criteria for animal studies, such as blinded outcome assessment, randomization, and all animals included in analyses, needs to improve to facilitate the assessment of studies for systematic reviews.
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Evidence for preclinical research indicates that funding sources may influence the interpretation of study outcomes.
“Evidence for preclinical research also indicates that funding sources may influence the interpretation of study outcomes [254,260].”
From Reporting animal research: Explanation and elaboration for the ARRIVE guidelines 2.0 (2020) · cites this paper as [254]
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- Authors
- Bero, L., Anglemyer, A., Vesterinen, H., & Krauth, D.
- Affiliations
- The University of Sydney (AU)
- California State University, Monterey Bay (US)
- University of California, San Francisco (US)
- Corresponding author
- Bero, L.
- Venue
- Environment International
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2016-07
- Volume
- 92-93
- Pages
- 597-604
- ISSN
- 0160-4120 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC4996667
- OpenAlex
- W2212455069
- Cited by
- 41
- References
- 28
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1 · 2025: 6 · 2024: 3 · 2023: 4 · 2022: 5 · 2021: 3 · 2020: 3 · 2019: 5 · 2018: 1 · 2017: 3 · 2016: 7
- FWCI
- 0.67
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Locations
- Environment International (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (R21ES021028)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Pharmacology, Toxicology and Pharmaceutics › Pharmacology › Pharmaceutical industry and healthcare
- Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Plant Science › Pesticide Exposure and Toxicity
- Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › Statistics, Probability and Uncertainty › Meta-analysis and systematic reviews
- Keywords
- atrazine, industry funding, research funding conflicts of interest, risk of bias assessment, reproductive toxicity, developmental toxicity, pesticide exposure, effect size
- MeSH terms
- Animals, Atrazine, Environmental Exposure, Environmental Pollutants, Humans, Industry, Research Support as Topic, Conflict of Interest, Publication Bias, Research Report
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