From Mark Davies, Department of Paediatrics and Child Health, University of Queensland
Iain Chalmers makes the point that ethics committees have played a role in allowing drug companies to get away with the under-reporting of results from clinical trials (6 March, p 19). I would go one step further and say that they have – or should have – a central role in ensuring unbiased reporting of clinical trials.
All clinical trials must get approval from ethics committees, or institutional review boards, before they can enrol patients for the trials. It is up to these committees to seek guarantees that the results of the trials will be published in full before giving approval for the trial to go ahead.
They should also insist that the trial is registered with an accessible trials registry, such as the metaRegister of Controlled Trials, and, if it is a randomised controlled trial, have an International Standard Randomised Controlled Trial Number.
Brisbane, Queensland, Australia
