AllTrials update

Dear Friends

Yesterday the European General Court issued an injunction stopping the European medicines regulator from releasing information from clinical trials conducted by two pharmaceutical companies at the request of those two companies. The ruling pertains to two particular cases but it has ramifications for all.

The Court’s decision puts the European Medicines Agency into conflict with its own stated policy to proactively release clinical trial data for all medicines being used in Europe. More importantly it puts it into conflict with patient’s interests. We need to let the EMA know how much support there is for their stance on transparency. Can you help us get 100,000 signatures on the AllTrials petition by the end of today and we will send it to them? There is more information on this and a note you can forward to friends and colleagues here.

20th May is International Clinical Trials Day and by then we need to have every organisation that should care about this issue signed up to the campaign. On 30th May there is an important vote in the European Parliament on amendments to the clinical trials regulation and we need to show MEPs there is support across Europe for openness about research results. If you know or work for an organisation that is considering signing up please ask them to do it before 20th.

The AllTrials campaign has been launched in America. Dartmouth’s Geisel School of Medicine is leading the US campaign and urging every medical school and patient advocacy group to join. The Cochrane Collaboration and PLOS have joined the core group of organisations behind the AllTrials campaign.

Thank you to all of you who have donated and fundraised for the campaign. You have helped us get over half way to the target that will allow us to make the case for clinical trial transparency in Europe and around the world. If you haven’t already please donate anything you can, even small amounts make a difference www.justgiving.com/alltrials

Thank you too to those of you who offered to help us develop the campaign website. If we haven’t been in touch yet we will be very soon.

Everyone can keep up with news from the campaign at http://www.alltrials.net/news/ and follow #AllTrials on Twitter. If you can help with the campaign please get in touch with Chris Peters cpeters@senseaboutscience.org

Best wishes

Síle