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To the Editor: Calls to establish a comprehensive clinical trial registry^1-2 are welcome. As registry supporters point out, the failure to publicize full trial data denies physicians and patients valuable information and unjustifiably diminishes the contributions of researchers and trial participants.

The lack of a comprehensive trial registry has another negative consequence: it fosters the general perception that investigational interventions are better than existing alternatives. When this perception guides patients, they enroll in trials assuming that they will receive cutting-edge therapy. If negative and inconclusive trial results were widely reported, the public would receive an accurate picture of medicine’s slow and incremental advances. Such reporting could also raise awareness that research is done to advance knowledge, not to provide individual trial participants with the best treatment.³

In 1997, Congress directed health officials to establish www.clinicaltrials.gov as a national registry so that patients could locate trials relevant to their conditions. Unfortunately, . . . [Full Text of this Article]

Rebecca Dresser, JD
dresser@wulaw.wustl.edu
Washington University School of Law
St Louis, Mo

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