ELEVEN top medical journals have devised a plan to prevent drug firms from suppressing negative results of their clinical trials.
The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors says its members will refuse to publish papers on clinical trial results if the trial was not recorded publicly at its outset. The journals involved include The New England Journal of Medicine, The Lancet and The Journal of the American Medical Association.
The register 鈥� to be set up over the next 12 months 鈥� would record the size, design and purpose of each trial. This should prevent companies from selectively reporting positive results or spinning data to suppress inconclusive or unflattering conclusions, says Catherine De Angelis, editor-in-chief of JAMA.
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The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, an industry group, has set up its own database in which member companies can voluntarily deposit both negative and positive results. But De Angelis says self-regulation will not work. 鈥淲hy would you put the fox in charge of the hen house?鈥� she says. 鈥淚f they have nothing to hide, why waste money setting up their own database?鈥�