MPs on the UK parliament’s Public Accounts Committee today issued one of the most damning reports ever seen on the problem of clinical trial results being withheld. Their amazement at the extent of the problem is palpable. This is a fantastic result for the campaign that started with Iain Chalmers et al many years ago, grew with the publication of Bad Pharma, and is now transformed into a vast behemoth with widespread support at AllTrials. You can read the Committee’s report in full here, and see the video of the evidence session with me and Fi Godlee from the BMJ here. I should say, I’ve been hugely impressed by the MPs I’ve come into contact with on this issue.
There has been extensive media coverage so far, some of the best (the ones that go beyond the Committee’s press release…) can be found in: the Independent, the Telegraph, the BBC, PharmaTimes and the Times (regarding that last article, I wonder if Bina Rawal of the ABPI will come to regret claiming that Richard Bacon, the deputy chair of the highly influential Public Accounts Committee, has been misleading people: the current regime at the ABPI do seem rather clumsy, more on their activities to come). Next, here is an article by David Tovey, head of Cochrane, one from Ginny Barbour, the big medical cheese at PLOS, and here is the BMJ news piece. Here’s a comment piece by Matt Ridley in the Times (caution: contains climate lols), and here’s a comment piece from me in The Guardian. There’ll be an editorial in the BMJ shortly.
There’s also extensive commentary in our press release at AllTrials.net. Here’s my bit from that press release: Read the rest of this entry »
