Medical Trial Information to be Kept Confidential from Patients

Congress last month passed a bill requiring greater disclosure to patients who participate in medical trials for drugs that are brought to market, but those who participate in trials for drugs that are never marketed are not entitled to the same information, the New York Times reports.

Specifically, drug companies that test but do not market do not have to disclose the results of their studies to patients.

The next most important news of the article – which doesn’t appear for fifteen grafs – is that problems that arise during failed clinical trials do not have to be publicly reported.

Small device makers would supposedly face being put out of business by being forced to make such disclosures. The article seems to imply that small device makers that lobbied congress were influential in changing the bill.

But consider that Dr. Steven E. Nissen, quoted in the article as the chairman of the cardiology department at the Cleveland Clinic, said, “The problem is that if you don’t tell people about failed trials, you can make the same mistake again and again.”

-Clark Merrefield