Just Say Yes to Drug Trial Information

摘要

Several different research-access stories were in the news in September. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) issued a proposed rule that would require that all scholarly papers based on NIH-funded research be made available for free on a government Web site six months after they are published. The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturing Association (PhRMA) announced that it would establish a free Web site where drug companies could voluntarily publish summaries of the results of drug trials. On September 8, a group of editors of major medical journals issued a statement in which they said that they will accept articles on clinical trials only if information about the trials is announced publicly before they begin. All these events are related to the fundamental issue of how much free information is the public entitled to, but they differ significantly in the particulars.