MPs call for full results of all past clinical trials to be made public

The methods and results of all past clinical trials in the United Kingdom, as well as future trials, should be made available to doctors and researchers to ensure the safety of drugs being prescribed by clinicians, MPs have said.

MPs on the parliamentary public accounts committee have also called for further scrutiny of Tamiflu, Roche’s branded form of oseltamivir, which had been used to treat pandemic flu, before more supplies are bought and stockpiled by the government.

A report published by the committee on 3 January on access to clinical trial information and the stockpiling of oseltamivir raises many concerns over how the current system operates.1

It says that information is routinely withheld from doctors and researchers about the methods and results of clinical trials on treatments that are currently prescribed in the UK.

Although the problem has been known about for many years, says the report, action taken by the government, industry, or professional bodies to tackle it has been inadequate.

The MPs recommended that the Department of Health take action to ensure that full methods and results were made available to doctors and researchers from all trials on all uses of all treatments currently being prescribed—from now on and retrospectively—and …