Public campaign sets out how trial data should be made public

The organisations behind AllTrials, a public campaign calling for detailed information on clinical trials to be publically available, have put together a detailed plan on how to achieve clinical trial reporting on a global scale.

The AllTrials petition was launched in January and has so far gathered over 55,000 signatures, along with support from funding organisations, pharma companies and public bodies. But critics say that some clinical trial results should be kept confidential to protect the privacy of participants and commercially sensitive data.

The organisations behind the initiative, which include campaigning group Sense About Science, BMJ Group and the Centre for Evidence-based Medicine, insist that unreported results from thousands of clinical trials are hindering research and leading to bad treatment decisions by physicians. They have now released an action plan setting out the information that should be reported for all past and present clinical trials. This includes a database of all trials that have been conducted (from a clinical trials register) and full details of its methods and results, but does not include individual patient data.

In a statement, AllTrials said it welcomed comments and contributions on the document from external bodies, saying the plan is ‘part of a continuing discussion which many different organisations are working on elaborating further over coming weeks and months’.

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