AllTrials: Make clinical trials count

When you talk about this problem to patients and the public

but also doctors and policy makers

They are appalled at what we've tolerated.

We've had three decades of failing to fix this problem

and the time really has come to draw a line underneath it

and fix it for good.

When I saw the doctor who gave me the diagnosis

I wanted to hear anything but the word 'cancer'

But that didn't happen.

When, a couple of days later

my doctor raised the possibility of a clinical trial

there wasn't really much of a decision that I felt that I had to make.

I genuinely wanted some good to come out of my situation

no matter what was going to happen to me.

To find out that not all clinical trials were being published

is just horrifying - it's an insult to me

and to everyone else who volunteers to do these trials.

Doctors have unintentionally wasted huge amounts of money

on treatments which either are less effective than we thought

or were unnecessarily expensive

and we've exposed patients to harm

by giving them the less effective of the currently available treatment

simply because clinical trial results have been withheld from us.

The best currently available evidence shows that on average

the chances of a completed trial being published are roughly 50/50.

And trials with positive, flattering results

are about twice as likely to be published as trials with negative results.

The vast majority of medicines we use every day

came on the market a decade or more ago.

It's these trials where half of them haven't published results

so for the medicines we use every day, information is missing.

How can they possibly run trials on healthy volunteers

or worse, on sick people

knowing that they don't intend to make the information available?

We need immediate access to the full methods and results

of all trials on all uses of all the treatments

that are currently being prescribed to millions of patients today.

Hundreds of organisations who have joined the campaign

including research funders, companies, and academic institutes

have started serious discussions

about all they can do to achieve more transparency.

Terms like trust and transparency

haven't been closely associated with the industry

and at GSK we've realised there's more we can do

to be more open and transparent about the research we conduct.

And if independent researchers can come along

and provide a fresh perspective on the research we've done

that's great for science, it's great for us

and most importantly it's going to improve patient care.

Clinical trials aren't just done on drugs.

They're done on psychiatric treatments, medical devices

surgical techniques, and veterinary science.

Anybody who funds and runs clinical trials should sign up to the campaign.

Yes it's worrying about what you might find

everybody has skeletons in their cupboards.

But now is the time for more companies

and more institutes to make a commitment.

We know that withholding the results of clinical trials costs lives

wastes money, inflicts avoidable suffering and harm on patients.

And so I don't think it's any longer tenable to say "we didn't know".

To make medicine better, we've got to make clinical trials count.

Please share this film with friends and family and sign the petition at alltrials.net