3 ms·
One positive reform for transparency in medical research is the requirement to register clinical trials. Quoting from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clinical_tri
by dalke 11y ago
One positive reform for transparency in medical research is the requirement to register clinical trials. Quoting from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clinical_trials_registry#Creation_and_development https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clinical_trials_registry#Creat... :
> For many years, scientists and others have worried about reporting biases such that negative or null results from initiated clinical trials may be less likely to be published than positive results, thus skewing the literature and our understanding of how well interventions work.[2] This worry has been international and written about for over 50 years.[3] One of the proposals to address this potential bias was a comprehensive register of initiated clinical trials that would inform the public which trials had been started.[4] Ethical issues were those that seemed to interest the public most, as trialists (including those with potential commercial gain) benefited from those who enrolled in trials, but were not required to “give back,” telling the public what they had learned.
> Those who were particularly concerned by the double standard were systematic reviewers, those who summarize what is known from clinical trials. If the literature is skewed, then the results of a systematic review are also likely to be skewed, possibly favoring the test intervention when in fact the accumulated data do not show this, if all data were made public.
This is public information, and (quoting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ClinicalTrials.gov https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ClinicalTrials.gov ) "A 2013 study analyzing 8907 interventional trials registered in ClinicalTrials.gov found that 23.2% of trials had abstract-linked result articles and 7.3% of trials had registry-linked articles. "
To be truly anonymous would mean hiding this link, which would be a backwards step.