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  1. Waiving...
  2. Waiving confidentiality for the greater good
Analysis And Comment Research protocols

Waiving confidentiality for the greater good

BMJ 2006; 332 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.332.7549.1086 (Published 04 May 2006) Cite this as: BMJ 2006;332:1086

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Do trials have a right of privacy?

Chan & colleagues make some excellent suggestions about the
importance of access to protocols but, in some areas, I don't feel these
go far enough. If we accept the principle of trial registration as an
ethical imperative (and an important tool to prevent under-reporting) and
if we also accept that selective reporting of research is a form of
scientific misconduct, then I cannot understand why 'serious problems'
identified by the scrutiny of trial protocols should be presented only as
aggregate 'anonymised' data.

I do not accept that a trial has the same rights to privacy as an
individual but, rather, that anybody conducting clinical trials has
serious responsibilities to report results fairly. Users of the medical
evidence base are not protected from misleading reports if expert
reviewers are only able to say (for example) 'we think about 10% of
reports had serious problems, but we're not going to tell you which ones'.

What's wrong with naming and shaming?

Competing interests:
None declared

Competing interests: No competing interests

08 May 2006
Liz Wager
Publications Consultant
Sideview, Princes Risborough, HP27 9DE, UK
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