Drug companies will in future find it harder to bury the results of trials that show their products in a poor light. The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Amendments Act, passed by Congress last week, will require clinical trials to be registered and their results placed in a public database.
The new law contains a raft of measures to improve drug safety, including better monitoring for adverse effects after drugs hit the market. The trials registry is vital, says Merrill Goozner of the Center for Science in the Public Interest in Washington DC, because problems such as the heart…
