Sign up to the AllTrials campaign!

I had intended to push you into supporting this campaign, in a 'Medicine' section post, but seeing as delays have pushed it far too late, i'll just have to write a tiny article, separately, exhorting you to do so...


Sign up to this!!!
http://www.alltrials.net/

We need to have as many signatories as possible by the 20th May. I know - short notice - sorry. But "every little helps".


The AllTrials campaign is spearheaded by Ben Goldacre - he of this book fame, and author of this one - and is intended to push for a system that effectively compels pharmaceutical companies to release all the data they have, regarding the drugs that they market.

Like Ben says - if i lose half the evidence, like drug companies do with their research, then i can convince you that any coin has two 'heads'. This is unacceptable.

People's health is at risk - we can not afford to have dud drugs on the market; and we must not have the real-medicine market tainted by similarity with the quack markets. We must have quality control that ensures the drugs actually do something!


"...it is very important that you sign up to the AllTrials campaign, to ensure that it stays firmly on the agenda for government, industry, and professional bodies. If you’ve already signed, make the person next to you sign, send an email to a friend, or contact your professional body / patient group and ask them to sign.http://www.badscience.net/2013/03/im-on-the-one-show-talking-about-missing-trials-tonight/

'My evidence to the Science and Tech Select Committee inquiry on missing trial data'
http://www.badscience.net/2013/04/my-evidence-to-the-uk-parliamentary-select-committee-inquiry-into-missing-trial-data/


From a campaign e-mail:

"[The] 20th May is International Clinical Trials Day and by then we need to have every organisation that should care about this issue signed up to the campaign. 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."

"(On Tuesday the 30th April, the European General Court 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 patient’s interests. We need to let the EMA know how much support there is for their stance on transparency.)"


FYI: Roche - the company that manufactures Tamiflu and refuses to release full evidence regarding whether it works or not - has not signed up to this campaign. GSK, however, has. Infer as to the respective behaviours of those companies, what you will.

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Secondarily, for UK residents, the Nightingale Collaboration has been working hard to ensure that the CNHC (Complementary and Natural Healthcare Council) or OfQuack as it is pejoratively known, is treated fairly by the PSA (Professional Standards Authority) and that they actually enforce some kinds of standards, in the pseudo-scientists who are registered with them!

It seems the CNHC, although willing to tidy its own web-site (which supposedly regulates CNHC-registered SCAM proponents) is showing little ability to cause traders to follow suit.

All the NC asks, is that you look down the CNHC's register, find quacks local to you, check their web-sites for claims (links will be provided on the CNHC site) that breach regulations, and fill in the details to the Nightingale Collaboration's form, that it's kindly made for you, to save you effort.

Here is the necessary link:
http://www.nightingale-collaboration.org/news/147-cnhc-campaign-one-final-push.html

A pile of official complaints will be evidence, to the PSA, and to Health Ministers, that the CNHC is not a competent regulatory body, and so should not be given the power to regulate SCAM industries in lieu of competent, Medicinal regulators.
I have found several CNHC registrants in my area, and they all breach the regulations in several ways. Please do your bit. It doesn't take that long - you can afford to be terse on the form.