Petitions for Research Integrity and Against Corruption Available for Signature

Recently, two petitions relevant to the goals of Health Care Renewal have become available. 

US Petition to "Stop False Reporting of Drug Benefits & Harms by Making FDA & NIH Work Together"

Health Care Renewal blogger Dr Bernard Carroll, along with Dr Mickey Nardo, who blogs on 1BoringOldMan, and Emeritus Professor John H Noble Jr have authored a petition to improve the reporting of clinical research in the US, and hence combat the manipulation of clinical research, a topic we often discuss.

Its essence is:

We now petition Congress to require the FDA and NIH to coordinate their monitoring and sharing of key information through ClinicalTrials.gov. Working together, the two agencies could enable stakeholders to verify whether purported scientific claims are faithful to the a priori protocols and plans of analysis originally registered with the FDA. Publication of analyses for which such fidelity cannot be verified shall be prohibited unless the deviations are positively identified (as in openly declared unplanned, secondary analyses). This prohibition shall include scientific claims for on-label or off-label uses made in medical journals, archival conference abstracts, continuing education materials, brochures distributed by sales representatives, direct-to-consumer advertising, and press releases issued by companies or their academic partners. It shall extend to FDA Phase 2, Phase 3, and Phase 4 clinical trials. By acting on this petition, Congress will create a mechanism for stakeholders independently to verify whether inferences about clinical use suggested by the unregulated corporate statistical analyses can be trusted.

The full petition is available online, and is sponsored by the Science and Evidence Council of the Right Care Alliance.

Transparency International Declaration Against Corruption

Transparency International is sponsoring a declaration, valid globally, against corruption.  We often discuss health care corruption, despite the apparent taboo against doing so.  As we just noted, this comes as Transparency International is launching a major initiative against health care corruption.

Its essence is:

I will not pay bribes
I will not seek bribes
I will work with others to campaign against corruption
I will speak out against corruption and report on abuse
I will only support candidates for public office who say no to corruption and demonstrate transparency, integrity and accountability.

It is available for signature here.