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Nearly a third of anti-depressant studies are never published and nearly all of these indicate that the medication didn’t work. A new phenomenom called selective publishing is taking place in the medical world. This can lead to inappropriate prescriptions that may do more harm than good.

There were five studies for Pfizer’s Zoloft, but the three showing the drug to be ineffective were not published. A fourth study, ruled questionable by the FDA, was written and published to make it appear that the drug worked.

A Glaxo spokeswoman said the company posts the data from all of its trials, positive or negative, on the Internet.

“GlaxoSmithKline agrees that public disclosure of clinical trial results for marketed medicines is essential and fully supports registration of all trials in progress,” she said.

“Pfizer is committed to the communication of results of all registered clinical studies, regardless of outcome. More specifically, we have committed to disclose clinical trial results within one year after study completion for all of our marketed products,” Pfizer spokesman Jack Cox said in an e-mail.

Turner and his colleagues did not find out who was to blame for not publishing the studies. He said medical journals may have played a role by deciding they would rather publish favorable results.

“There’s an expectation that if you get a positive result, that’s what you’re supposed to do, and if you get a negative result you have failed,” said Turner. “The first impulse is to say, ‘I was wrong. Maybe I should move on to something more interesting”‘ so the results may never get written up.

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