Publication Duty for big Pharma? | Speaking of Medicine

"A recent case of publication bias has fuelled the debate over whether there should be mandatory publication of clinical trial results, including those sponsored by pharmaceutical companies, in Europe....IQWIG said in a press release, that Pfizer only provided the data under “massive public pressure”....The press release goes a bit further than the companion article. It mentions a draft for a German “Law on the Reorganization of the Pharmaceutical Market”. This bill would stipulate mandatory publication of studies by the pharmaceutical companies. However, you have to go to the actual text to understand that posting raw data on the internet would suffice. Why not a European requirement? In the US, there is an analogous rule; all clinical trial data of studies after September 27, 2007 must be published on ClinicalTrials.gov. The value of such transparency for patients, payers, and society at large could not be more obvious.