The Public Library of Science (PLoS) revealed today that the lead author of a study identifying publication bias (released this week in PLoS Medicine) has discovered that a database (clinicalstudyresults.org) set up to “serve the valuable function of making clinical trial results for many marketed pharmaceuticals more transparent…” had silently disappeared. Compliance with legislation requiring study sponsors to deposit results in a government database (ClinicalTrials.gov) is still very poor, according to a study published in the British Medical Journal earlier this year.
