When you talk about this problem to patients and the public
but also doctors and policy makers
They are appalled at what we've tolerated.
We've had three decades of failing to fix this problem
and the time really has come to draw a line underneath it
and fix it for good.
When I saw the doctor who gave me the diagnosis
I wanted to hear anything but the word 'cancer'
But that didn't happen.
When, a couple of days later
my doctor raised the possibility of a clinical trial
there wasn't really much of a decision that I felt that I had to make.
I genuinely wanted some good to come out of my situation
no matter what was going to happen to me.
To find out that not all clinical trials were being published
is just horrifying - it's an insult to me
and to everyone else who volunteers to do these trials.
Doctors have unintentionally wasted huge amounts of money
on treatments which either are less effective than we thought
or were unnecessarily expensive
and we've exposed patients to harm
by giving them the less effective of the currently available treatment
simply because clinical trial results have been withheld from us.
The best currently available evidence shows that on average
the chances of a completed trial being published are roughly 50/50.
And trials with positive, flattering results
are about twice as likely to be published as trials with negative results.
The vast majority of medicines we use every day
came on the market a decade or more ago.
It's these trials where half of them haven't published results
so for the medicines we use every day, information is missing.
How can they possibly run trials on healthy volunteers
or worse, on sick people
knowing that they don't intend to make the information available?
We need immediate access to the full methods and results
of all trials on all uses of all the treatments
that are currently being prescribed to millions of patients today.
Hundreds of organisations who have joined the campaign
including research funders, companies, and academic institutes
have started serious discussions
about all they can do to achieve more transparency.
Terms like trust and transparency
haven't been closely associated with the industry
and at GSK we've realised there's more we can do
to be more open and transparent about the research we conduct.
And if independent researchers can come along
and provide a fresh perspective on the research we've done
that's great for science, it's great for us
and most importantly it's going to improve patient care.
Clinical trials aren't just done on drugs.
They're done on psychiatric treatments, medical devices
surgical techniques, and veterinary science.
Anybody who funds and runs clinical trials should sign up to the campaign.
Yes it's worrying about what you might find
everybody has skeletons in their cupboards.
But now is the time for more companies
and more institutes to make a commitment.
We know that withholding the results of clinical trials costs lives
wastes money, inflicts avoidable suffering and harm on patients.
And so I don't think it's any longer tenable to say "we didn't know".
To make medicine better, we've got to make clinical trials count.
Please share this film with friends and family and sign the petition at alltrials.net