UK committee urges transparency in clinical trials

The UK Parliament’s Science and Technology Committee has described the current lack of transparency of many clinical trials as “unacceptable,” adding that it has not been impressed with government efforts to tackle the problem to date.

Committee chairman Andrew Miller MP said: “Many of the trials taking place today are unregistered and unpublished, meaning that the information that they generate remains invisible to both the scientific community and the public. This is unacceptable, undermining public trust, slowing the pace of medical advancement and potentially putting patients at risk.”

He said that all trials conducted on National Health Service (NHS) treatments — and all other trials receiving public funding — should be prospectively registered and their results published in a scientific journal. While the focus should be on implementing this change for future trials, he added that the government should ensure that historic trials are registered and published, particularly where they have been publically funded.