The European General Court recently issued an injunction stopping the European medicines regulator from releasing information from clinical trials conducted by two pharmaceutical companies at the request of those two companies. The ruling pertains to two particular cases but it has ramifications for all.

The Court’s decision puts the European Medicines Agency into conflict with its own stated policy to proactively release clinical trial data for all medicines being used in Europe. More importantly it puts it into conflict with patients’ interests.

20th May is International Clinical Trials Day and by then every organisation that believes that all trials to be registered needs to have signed up to the campaign via the AllTrials petition. On 30th May there is an important vote in the European Parliament on amendments to the clinical trials regulation and we need to show MEPs there is support across Europe for openness about research results. If you know or work for an organisation that is considering signing up please ask them to do it before 20th.

The AllTrials campaign has been launched in America. Dartmouth’s Geisel School of Medicine is leading the US campaign and urging every medical school and patient advocacy group to join. The Cochrane Collaboration and PLOS have joined the core group of organisations behind the AllTrials campaign.

Source: AllTrials