Saturday, December 31, 2005

NEJM calls for a boycott of secretive drug trials

The editor of New England Journal of Medicine, Dr Jeffrey Drazen, has called on doctors who engage in drug trials to boycott any studies sponsored by Big Pharma that do not fully live up to the spirit of legal requirements to register such research efforts.

In a study that appears in this weeks Journal, researchers from the National Institutes of Health report that many of the registered trials fail to give critical information. Sometimes not even including the name of the drug being studied.

For Drazen, that type of corporate evasion is unacceptable.

Insider agrees absolutely. Big Pharma registered clinical trial information should be complete, accurate and accessible.

'In our opinion, it is unacceptable for a trial sponsor not to register its trial in a complete, meaningful and timely fashion. We call for all clinical investigators and patients to participate only in fully registered trials."

This call has recently been echoed by the major organization representing academic medical centers in the United States -- the Association of American Medical Colleges.

'We demand complete compliance, because trial registration makes moral sense,' Drazen said. 'When patients put themselves at risk to participate in clinical trials, they do so with the tacit understanding that their risk is part of the public record, not merely the secret record of the sponsor.'

Hear hear, says Insider.

Insider would be happy to publicise any secret or forgotten clinical trials Big Pharma would like to keep under wraps.
Monsters and Critics

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