Too much information? Posted by Rob at 04/25/05 11:47 AM

At a recent DC conference for prescription drug insiders, a drug company lawyer used the opportunity to criticize legislation that would make clinical drug trial results public.

According to Inside Health Policy Phoebe Mounts, an industry lawyer, pointed out that if all clinical trial results are posted, researchers and those who supervise them will actually have to read that information! Apparently she doesn't think that's a good thing.

"For example, she pointed out that investigational review boards are responsible for reviewing information used to recruit subjects for clinical trials. If companies are forced to post trial information on public databases, then IRBs would be responsible for screening the trial data posted on Web sites..." and it could be "thousands of web pages of information for every trial"

We sure hope that the publication on a web site of all clinical trial findings will result in a better, more comprehensive, and well informed process for conducting future clinical trials! And we hope that good researchers and good IRBs would welcome new data as they work to make sure their trials are safe for subjects and useful in the research they produce.

She also raised concerns about patients “study shopping.”

"Patients looking for clinical trials could shop for trials that do not use placebos, even though placebo-controlled trials offer the best results. Patients also could shop for trials that offer longer-term follow ups, increasing the price of trials and drugs."

Even if what she says is true, if I were about to participate in a clinical trial, I think I'd want as much information as possible about it. Shouldn't human subjects have the right to have as complete information as possible about the available clinical trials?

Our view: when it comes to the safety and effectiveness of prescription drugs, medical professionals, researchers, and consumers should have complete information, not merely what the drug companies want us to see. The system we have now lets pharmaceutical companies decide whether to release a study with negative results to the public. Or not.

Isn't there something about the truth setting us free?

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