For newer antidepressants, negative trials were published transparently 47 percent of the time, up from 11 percent
Thirty trials of four antidepressants approved 2008 to 2013: every positive trial was published transparently, 7 of 15 negative ones were. Effect size inflation was 0.05, against 0.10 for the older drugs.
Suggestive but preliminary. Not settled. how we score evidence
Caveat on this rating: Thirty trials of four drugs from one class; the authors say so. "Transparent" is defined by agreement between the published and FDA conclusions, a judgement.
The 2008 paper found journals inflating antidepressant efficacy. The same lead author went back to check whether the newer drugs did better.
Significant findings
Turner and colleagues (PLoS Medicine, 2022) used FDA approval packages to identify "30 Phase II/III double-blind placebo-controlled acute monotherapy trials, involving 13,747 patients, of desvenlafaxine, vilazodone, levomilnacipran, and vortioxetine" and compared them with the earlier data set of "74 trials of 12 older antidepressants (approved December 1987 to August 2002)."
"Among newer antidepressants, transparent publication occurred more with positive (15/15 = 100%) than negative (7/15 = 47%) trials (OR 35.1, CI95% 1.8 to 693). Controlling for trial outcome, transparent publication occurred more with newer than older trials (OR 6.6, CI95% 1.6 to 26.4). Within negative trials, transparent reporting increased from 11% to 47%."
On effect size: "For newer antidepressants, FDA-based effect size (ESFDA) was 0.24 (CI95% 0.18 to 0.30), while journal-based effect size (ESJournals) was 0.29 (CI95% 0.23 to 0.36). Thus, effect size inflation, presumably due to reporting bias, was 0.05, less than for older antidepressants (0.10)."
The conclusion: "Reporting bias persists but appears to have diminished for newer, compared to older, antidepressants. Continued efforts are needed to further improve transparency in the scientific literature."
Worth asking
Better, not fixed: half of the negative trials of the newest antidepressants still did not reach the literature in a form that matched the FDA's reading. The effect size the FDA saw, 0.24, is also worth holding beside the number a clinic quotes; it is a small effect by convention. The authors note their limits, "a small number of trials and drugs-belonging to a single class-and a focus on efficacy (versus safety)".
Source
Selective publication of antidepressant trials and its influence on apparent efficacy: Updated comparisons and meta-analyses of newer versus older trials — Turner EH, Cipriani A, Furukawa TA, Salanti G, de Vries YA (2022)
Top-tier peer-reviewed journal
Read the source: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1003886
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pmed.1003886
How this was scored
- Study design
- Cross-sectional study / survey
- Funding
- Funding not disclosed
- Published in
- Top-tier peer-reviewed journal
- Sample size
- 13,747
- Preregistered
- not recorded
- Conflicts disclosed
- Yes
- Independent of proponent
- not recorded
- Retracted
- No
Read the full scoring rubric, including what it can't tell you.
Published September 21, 2026.
Questions
How strong is the evidence behind this?
veisund rates this source "early signal". Suggestive but preliminary. Not settled. It scores 54 out of 100 on our published rubric. One caveat travels with that badge: Thirty trials of four drugs from one class; the authors say so. "Transparent" is defined by agreement between the published and FDA conclusions, a judgement. The score is calculated from recorded facts about the source — study design, funding, publication venue, sample size, preregistration — not typed in by an editor.
What is the source for this?
Selective publication of antidepressant trials and its influence on apparent efficacy: Updated comparisons and meta-analyses of newer versus older trials — Turner EH, Cipriani A, Furukawa TA, Salanti G, de Vries YA (2022). Published in: Top-tier peer-reviewed journal. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pmed.1003886. The full source is linked on this page so you can read it yourself.
Who paid for this research, and does that matter?
Study design: Cross-sectional study / survey. Funding: Funding not disclosed. Independence from the proponent is not recorded. Industry sponsorship is one of the most reliably measured biases in medicine, which is why funding carries real weight in the score rather than sitting in a footnote.
Is this medical advice?
This is information to bring to your prescriber, not medical advice and not a reason to change anything on your own. Nothing here is an instruction to stop or reduce a medication. If you are in crisis, call or text 988.
This is information to bring to your prescriber, not medical advice and not a reason to change anything on your own. Nothing here is an instruction to stop or reduce a medication. If you are in crisis, call or text 988.