Tuesday, October 23, 2012

Missing drug trial results 'costs lives and wastes millions', MP argues.


Dr Sarah Wollaston, a family doctor and MP for Totnes, Brixham and South Hams, said the publication of drug research was “hugely important” and “matters very much”.
She has now called for pharmaceutical companies to publish all clinical trial results, saying it would give a “completely different evidence base for medicine”.
The MP intends to raise the issue in Parliament in an attempt to prevent drug companies from allegedly withholding results that are not favourable to them.
A British Medical Journal editorial on the issue states it "generally comes as a shock" to clinicians and the public that research is not properly disseminated.

Evidence showed that "a large proportion of evidence from human trials is unreported, and much of what is reported is done so inadequately," it said. "We are not dealing here with trial design, hidden bias, or problems of data analysis—we are talking simply about the absence of the data.

"And this is no academic matter, because missing data about harm in trials can harm patients, and incomplete data about benefit can lead to futile costs to health systems."Moreover, researchers or others who deliberately conceal trial results have breached their ethical duty to trial participants."

Ben Cochrane, doctor and academic, told the Times the issues was an “ongoing national scandal. “We need to ensure that the results of all clinical trials, past and future, on all drugs in current use are available to doctors and patients,” he said.


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