Critical unpublished medical information ‘a threat to public health’

A report by the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee has said that despite repeated warnings, not enough effort is being made to report the results of all clinical trials, which is posing a risk to health.

The evidence suggests that nearly 50 per cent of all clinical trials go unreported, meaning that some clinical decisions are being made without all available data, which in some cases, according to the research group, might endanger human life.

Heart drug Iorcainide, which went through clinical trials in 1980, was cited as an example. The results of the trials showed that patients taking the drug were more likely to die than those that were not. However, the findings were not published until thirteen years later, after it had been made available to patients in the USA.

Researcher Dr Simon Kolstoe, told the committee “Eight out of the ten trials that were used by the company to show the drug was useful in prevent complications such as pneumonia had never actually been peer-reviewed or published.”

He went on to say that governments were “relying on a market spiel claiming successful trials of this drug, rather than being able to consider the actual evidence of the drug efficacy for themselves.”

Although the NHS Health Research Authority (HRA) has been in control of ‘promoting research transparency’ for the last five years, but the committee are concerned that not enough is being done to improve reporting rates.

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Posted by Tony May, Partner/head of Clinical Negligence Department, Chadwick Lawrence LLP (tonymay@chadlaw.co.uk ), medical negligence lawyers and clinical negligence solicitors in Huddersfield, Leeds, Wakefield and Halifax, West Yorkshire.

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