Do As I Say, Not As I Do; BigPharm Screwing Around Again

Bet they're working on it really hard. Boston Globe (01.09.05):

"Six months after the drug industry vowed to make its clinical trials more transparent, and three months after launching a common website to give the public 'unprecedented access' to studies both good and bad, drug companies have posted unpublished trial results on the site for just five drugs. Pfizer Inc., the world's largest drug manufacturer with $40 billion in revenues in 2003, voluntarily disclosed unpublished study results on only one of the 29 prescription brand-name drugs it actively markets in the United States, the antidepressant Zoloft. Merck & Co. posted a listing for its withdrawn painkiller Vioxx, but clicking on the link reveals nothing but another link to the product's label and a list of two previously published studies, but not the studies themselves. There is no information posted, for example, about an unpublished, large-scale clinical trial of Vioxx performed in 2000 that showed a six-fold increase in cardiovascular risk. That study has been cited, among others, by critics who say Merck and the Food and Drug Administration ignored risks of Vioxx years ago." Drug firms lagging on openness

The Globe quotes Dr. Drummond Rennie, associate editor of the Journal of the American Medical Association: "It's pathetic. They get all the publicity from saying they will do it, and then they don't." Here's what the Globe found:

1. A total of 26 drugs listed on the clinical trials results website out of a total of more than 10,800 prescription medications and dosages sold in the United States.
2. Of the 26 drugs listed, just five contain data that have been previously unpublished, according to the Globe review.
3. The majority of the remaining 21 drugs on the website contain listings of scientific papers that were already published in medical journals and have been available to physicians.

Well, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) did say last September it would take a full year. Plus PhRMA's voluntary guidelines only provide for posting data completed after October 2002. Maybe when Billy Tauzin starts his new job, he can light a fire under 'em. See also: Drug Maker Withheld Paxil Study Data Grassley Gets Down On Big Pharm Conflict Of What? NIH Doctors And The Big Pharm Payroll Big Pharm Finding New Drugs? Nope, But Profits Have Been Good