SynthesisEnvironment international
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.
Synthesis in Environment international. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 22 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
22 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 41 citations in OpenAlex.
- Quality of reporting inflammatory bowel disease randomised controlled trials: a systematic review.BMJ open gastroenterology · 2024Pooled it
- Effects of Progesterone on Preclinical Animal Models of Traumatic Brain Injury: Systematic Review and Meta-analysis.Molecular neurobiology · 2022Pooled it
- A primer on systematic reviews in toxicology.Archives of toxicology · 2017Pooled it
- Conflicts of Interest, Funding Support, and Author Affiliation in Peer-Reviewed Research on the Relationship between Climate Change and Geophysical Characteristics of Hurricanes.Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society · 2026Article
- Assessing risk of bias in toxicological studies in the era of artificial intelligence.Archives of toxicology · 2025Review
- Development of the Navigation Guide Evidence-to-Decision Framework for Environmental Health: Version 1.0.Environmental science & technology · 2025Article
- Mapping commercial practices of the pesticide industry to shape science and policymaking: a scoping review.Health promotion international · 2025Article
- Conflicts of Interest in the Assessment of Chemicals, Waste, and Pollution.Environmental science & technology · 2023Review
- Intra-articular injections in sport-active patients with degenerative cartilage lesions or osteoarthritis of the knee: a systematic review.Journal of experimental orthopaedics · 2023Review
- A science-based agenda for health-protective chemical assessments and decisions: overview and consensus statement.Environmental health : a global access science source · 2023Article
- Conducting evaluations of evidence that are transparent, timely and can lead to health-protective actions.Environmental health : a global access science source · 2022Article
- Identifying environmental factors that influence immune response to SARS-CoV-2: Systematic evidence map protocol.Environment international · 2022Article
- Phthalate and novel plasticizer concentrations in food items from U.S. fast food chains: a preliminary analysis.Journal of exposure science & environmental epidemiology · 2022Article
- Principles and framework for assessing the risk of bias for studies included in comparative quantitative environmental systematic reviews.Environmental evidence · 2022Article
- Reporting animal research: Explanation and elaboration for the ARRIVE guidelines 2.0.PLoS biology · 2020Article
- Scientific integrity issues in Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry: Improving research reproducibility, credibility, and transparency.Integrated environmental assessment and management · 2019Review
- Associations between industry involvement and study characteristics at the time of trial registration in biomedical research.PloS one · 2019Article
- Biomarker analysis of American toad (Anaxyrus americanus) and grey tree frog (Hyla versicolor) tadpoles following exposure to atrazine.Aquatic toxicology (Amsterdam, Netherlands) · 2017Article
- Conflict of Interest and Funding Disclosure Policies of Environmental, Occupational, and Public Health Journals.Journal of occupational and environmental medicine · 2017Article
- Recent Scientific Evidence Regarding Asbestos Use and Health Consequences of Asbestos Exposure.Current environmental health reports · 2016Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors at 3 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundA 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.
objectiveTo 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.
methodsWe 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.
resultsFifty-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.
conclusionOur 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.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.