One-Third of Clinical Trial Results Never Disclosed, Study Finds
bloomberg.com
bloomberg.com
The only time I've ever seen negative results published is if someone tries to repeat "known" science, fails to do so, but finds something interesting in the mean time.
I used to hear these complaints about negative results in chemistry. The problem is, most scientific experiments (including clinical trials) are negative. If published, you'd need to increase the number of papers by ~500% to include all these failed experiments.
The best idea I've had is to minimize effort for negative experiments. Like arxiv, but perhaps a even less formal. Allow it to be easily searchable. It's still not incentivized, but it's a fuckton easier to put it out there.
I could also see dedicated data analysts publishing negative data of open data sets.
To solve the same problem in the private pharma industry just refuse to approve any new drugs from any company unless all trials are reported within x time period.
Just make them release the raw data. That will definitely encourage people to publish.
Although these stats look bad for the researchers, the other side of the story is that publishing anything these days is a pretty painful and not exactly transparent process.
I'm assuming that they would also have to register what their trials will be ahead of time? Otherwise there's no way for the regulators to know what trials need to be reported.
Having said this if the publication(s) are not well done then this can be almost as bad as not publishing. No data is often better than bad data.
http://www.statnews.com/2015/12/13/clinical-trials-investiga...
Because now we know not to try it again (and there may be interesting things we haven't found yet). We can also review the methods and see if it can be done better.
2/3rds of Hedge Fund returns never disclosed.
You could, of course, note that many clinicians who run trials work at Medicare-supported hospitals or work for grant-supported departments, however
[1]http://www.statnews.com/2015/12/13/clinical-trials-investiga...
To think otherwise is to think that my invention that I have locked up in my head that would benefit society (according to you) is something you have the right to force me to disclose.
Privacy exists for reasons and is a basic human right.
EG: do those who think you should have to disclose everything you know have pins on their phones? Think Apple shouldn't be encrypting phone data?
The funding rules for academic institutions should be changed to require pre-registration and disclosure of clinical trials; because that will better further the academic community's ultimate goal of expanding our communal knowledge.
This requirement includes studies funded privately as well as studies funded with public funds.
[1] https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/manage-recs/faq#complyFDAAA