Models for potentially biased evidence in meta-analysis using empirically based priors

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Funding Acknowledgements

The authors thank Professor Simon Thompson ( Medical Research Council Biostatistics Unit, Cambridge) and others who commented on an earlier version of this paper, which was presented to the workshop 'Explaining the results of a complex probabilistic modelling exercise: conflict, consistency and sensitivity analysis', which was sponsored by the Medical Research Council Population Health Sciences Research Network, in Cambridge, September 7th-8th, 2006. We also thank two referees for their very helpful comments on an earlier draft of this paper.