Drug companies hide trial results, putting patients and doctors in the dark

Who will let the dogs out?

Everyone who takes a prescription drug is stepping into the unknown. And I mean EVERYone. Including your doctor.

Your doctor MIGHT have a clue about the drugs he’s prescribing. But that’s the best you can expect. A clue. A particle. A bit.

That’s because almost nobody outside of the inner circle of drug company employees gets a complete look at drug company trials.

Here’s how trial transparency crusader Dr. Ben Goldacre puts it in a recent New York Times article… If you flip a coin, but hide it every time it comes up tails, it looks like the result is always heads.

That’s exactly what drug companies do with most of their studies. Goldacre notes that they only report about half of their research. And you can be certain there’s no good news in those unreported trials.

Two attempts to fix this problem have been complete failures.

A few years ago, the FDA started a trial transparency program. But the agency never enforced it.

What!? SHOCKING, right? Who could have predicted THAT?

The program turned into a joke. Literally. I’m sure drug company honchos get a laugh every time they think of it.

Medical journal editors also gave transparency a try back in 2005. Under that program, they would refuse to publish any trial unless it was entered in a publicly accessible registry before the trial began.

And that plan? Gone with the wind.

Ironically, these two failed plans BENEFIT drug companies. That’s because the industry pretends the plans were successful. They promote the fantasy that alert watchdogs are in place. In fact, those dogs are sound asleep in a doghouse out back somewhere.

Hear that barking? No. Nobody else does either.

Sources:
“Health Care’s Trick Coin” Ben Goldacre, The New York Times, 2/1/13, nytimes.com