UKRIO supports the AllTrials petition

UKRIO is pleased to support the AllTrials petition. Since our inception, we have stressed that all research should be conducted to the highest standards of honesty, accuracy, integrity and accountability. The AllTrials initiative is a chance for the research community and the public to bring about real change.

It is is essential to retain the public’s trust, safeguard the wellbeing of research participants and patients, and ensure that decisions are not based on biased or incomplete evidence. The publication of data should not be suppressed and findings should not be presented or interpreted inappropriately.

UKRIO has been saying this for some years. Our Code of Practice for Research (2009) states that ‘Organisations and researchers should accept their duty to publish and disseminate research in a manner that reports the research and all the findings of the research accurately and without selection that could be misleading.’

The Code goes on to say that ‘researchers have a duty to publish the findings of all clinical research involving human participants’ and that clinical trials should appear on public registers. Codes and policies alone cannot bring about change, so UKRIO has also promoted and supported these messages through our practical advisory service, our education and training, and the other services we provide to the research community.

Far more should have been done to address the non-publication of clinical trials and the selective reporting of data and results. The research community and the public now have an opportunity to take a clear stand on these issues. We hope that the weight of public opinion, academic argument and hard evidence against non-publication or selective publication of clinical trials will lead to real change.

If you would like further information, please contact us.

The AllTrials petition is an initiative of Sense About Science, Bad Science, BMJ, James Lind Initiative, the Centre for Evidence-based Medicine and others from research, patient groups and medicine. Further information – including how to sign the petition – is available on the petition’s website .