Should Drug Companies Release the Data from Their Clinical Trials?
That’s ALL the data:
For years, researchers have talked about the problem of publication bias, or selectively publishing results of trials. Concern about such bias gathered force in the 1990s and early 2000s, when researchers documented how, time and again, positive results were published while negative ones were not. Taken together, studies have shown that results of only about half of clinical trials make their way into medical journals. (More)
Seems like a noble goal that consumers should get behind. If we want more transparency the quickest way there is to reward companies for it.
I’m sure the government will join the party late and swoop in to create more oversight to make sure that this transparency is required.
The power of the consumer is a powerful thing. Hopefully they do get behind this.
The quickest way would be to have an objectively informed society, which in turn would reward companies for it.
To me this seems like a no-brainer. Consumers hopefully will know start demanding this more often.
Publication bias…well at last this is being more widely exposed.
True. This has been a big problem going on for far too long with little public scrutiny.
I agree.
There is a suspicion that when a positive effect from a drug is found, the clinical trial stops. The length of the trial may be determined by the point at which researchers EXPECT to find the largest positive effect. Thus, one sees studies that report outcomes at 6 or 12 weeks — but that’s it. Smoking cessation trials, e.g., appear to be of this type. If the investigators measured outcomes by the end of a year (people who quit smoking & stayed quit), they would find the results converge to the mean.
Whose suspicion is this from?