Letters

Pharmaceutical industry is invited to respond to amnesty for unreported trials

Editor–Alan Maynard and Karen Bloor are correct to call for regulation of the pharmaceutical industry to ensure that all data from clinical trials are made publicly available.¹ It is now well established that underreporting of clinical trials is a potent source of bias in the medical literature on the effectiveness of treatment and that research by the pharmaceutical industry is associated with a low publication rate (27%).^{2 3} The amnesty for unpublished trials announced today in the editorial by Smith and Roberts provides an opportunity for both non-industry and industry researchers, and the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry has been invited to respond positively to the initiative.

Ian Roberts, Director ^a

^a Child Health Monitoring Unit, Institute of Child Health, London WC1N 1EH Ian.Roberts@ich.ucl.ac.uk

1. Maynard A, Bloor K. Regulating the pharmaceutical industry. BMJ 1997;315:200-1. (26 July.) [Free Full Text]
2. Egger M, Davey Smith G. Misleading meta-analysis. BMJ 1995;310:752-4. [Free Full Text]
3. Wise P, Drury M. Pharmaceutical trials in general practice: the first 100 protocols. An audit by . . . [Full text of this article]

CiteULike

Complore

Connotea

Del.icio.us

Digg

Reddit

StumbleUpon

Technorati

Relevant Article

Regulating the pharmaceutical industry

Alan Maynard and Karen Bloor
BMJ 1997 315: 200-201. [Extract] [Full Text]

This article has been cited by other articles:

• Liebeskind, D. S., Kidwell, C. S., Sayre, J. W., Saver, J. L. (2006). Evidence of publication bias in reporting acute stroke clinical trials.. Neurology 67: 973-979 [Abstract] [Full text]