Medical journals may force disclosure of bad trials

1.00pm

WASHINGTON - Editors of the leading medical journals are considering a proposal that would make drug companies disclose trials that shed unfavourable light on their products, the New York Times reported on Tuesday.

Their discussions follow on a debate about whether some drug manufacturers cover up studies that do not have the desired outcome, thus skewing information provided to doctors and the public.

Editors at the journals, including the Lancet, the New England Journal of Medicine and others, declined to discuss the New York Times report but confirmed it was accurate.

"There is nothing false in the story," said a spokeswoman for the influential New England Journal.

Most medical news comes out of the journals, which usually seek to weed out weak research by subjecting reports to a battery of questions from experts under a process called peer review.

Many medical groups also sponsor conferences for sharing research.

But researchers are often part of a web of links to the drug industry. Research is expensive and often the only way to fund it is with a drug company's help.

Then the question arises of whether a company is in a position to influence either the results, or at least which results get published.

According to the Times report, the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors is considering a proposal that would require drug makers to register clinical trials in a public database when they are started.

That way, publishers and the public can check to see if results are submitted on schedule, or look for a pattern of companies quietly dropping trials that do not have the hoped-for outcome.

Kris Jenner, portfolio manager of T Rowe Price Associates' Health Science Fund, said such a registry would give patients and doctors a truer and fuller picture of a drug's real safety and effectiveness.

"We cannot have a system where only positive clinical trials ever see the light of day and negative trials are quietly buried," Jenner said in an interview.

"When all of the trials are considered together, then you can measure the weight of evidence."