Our Research & Training

We conduct research on the safety and effectiveness of medical products such as Alzheimer’s drugs, cancer drugs, and medical implants and devices used for a wide range of health problems, such as heart disease and joint replacement. In addition to the free information on this website and on www.stopcancerfund.org, we also publish articles in major medical journals and health policy journals.

These are the summaries of studies we’ve done, and here are the articles we’ve published in medical journals and health policy journals in the last few years.

Are you a reporter or medical writer interested in our free Health Research Training Workshop? Learn more here.

Study on Medical Device Recalls Released

Archives of Internal Medicine, February 14, 2011. Our study finds that most medical devices recalled during the last five years for “serious health problems or death” were originally cleared (approved) by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) using a less stringent process that does not require testing in patients.

Lack of Public Scientific Evidence on the Safety and Effectiveness of Implanted Medical Devices

JAMA Internal Medicine, September 29, 2014. The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approves about 400 implanted medical devices each year through an abbreviated process called the 510(k) process, which only rarely requires clinical trials (studies of patients).

Lack of Diversity in Cancer Drug Clinical Trials May Exacerbate Racial Disparities in Mortality Rates.

Cancer Epidemiology, July 22, 2014. Our brief commentary in Cancer Epidemiology in July 2014 points out that a lack of racial and ethnic diversity in clinical trials submitted to the FDA may exacerbate the growing racial disparity in breast cancer survival, as well as other racial disparities in survival.

NCHR Comment on Silicone Wristbands as Personal Passive Samplers

Environmental Science and Technology, July 10, 2014. Silicone bracelets may, as “chemical exposure monitors,” act as personal data-gathering devices to document an individual’s chemical exposures.

Regulatory Reticence and Medical Devices

The Milbank Quarterly, March 6, 2014. Our analysis of the recent history of device regulation in the United States, however, leads to a less optimistic conclusion: that these changes in regulatory policy fail to adequately address the central shortcoming in the regulation of medical devices in the United States and Europe.