Drug trial privacy flip draws fire

The federal government's medical-research funding agency has scrapped a new policy that required public disclosure of detailed drugtrial results, provoking international criticism and suggestions that the body buckled to pressure from pharmaceutical companies.

The Canadian Institute for Health Research policy, implemented last December, was designed to address allegations that companies cherry-pick trial results for publication to portray their medicines in the best light possible, sometimes keeping evidence of serious side effects under wraps.

The policy sought to force scientists funded by the agency to rapidly reveal all their raw data to the public -regardless of what they chose to publish in journals. Though widely praised, it was recently pulled and replaced by another document, with similar but less stringent requirements.

With the prominent British Medical Journal (BMJ) running an article recently on the CIHR's unheralded decision, the apparent reversal is drawing sharp rebukes from around the international health-research community.

"As a patient, I want to be assured that the decisions that have to be taken are taken based on all the best evidence," Sir Iain Chalmers, co-founder of the U.K.'s respected Cochrane Collaboration research body, said in an interview. "It seems to me that CIHR has decided that it's going to put my interests and the interests of other patients behind those of industry.... I think that's tragic."

via nationalpost.com

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