GlaxoSmithKline's own OA Clinical Trial Register was a major source of data for a new study showing that Avandia, GSK's drug for diabetes, increases the risk of heart attack. For details see yesterday's Wall Street Journal. (Thanks to Ari Friedman.)
Update. Apparently scientists studying Avandia risks don't have access to all the GSK data they'd like. See Jonathan Eisen's post about a radio discussion of the problem and his own phoned-in contribution.
Update. Cory Tomsons warns that the role of open data in this case doesn't mean that we can relax efforts to regulate and improve drug safety. Excerpt:
Open access to the data is a good idea, but it is not enough. Public health cannot take place voluntarily or in a legal vacuum. We need regulation to enforce that open access, we need regulation to uncover harmful effects and screen for snake-oil ‘alternative therapies’, and we need regulation to free doctors and patients from biased sales pitches. Absent this, informed choice about medical treatment is a myth.
Posted by
Peter Suber at 5/23/2007 11:25:00 AM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
I recommend the OA tracking project (OATP) as the best way to stay on top of new OA developments. You can read the OATP feed on a blog-like web page or subscribe to it by RSS, email, or Twitter. You can also help build the feed by tagging new developments you encounter.
