Clinical Trial Registry Errors Undermine Transparency | The Scientist Magazine®

"Confusion about terminology on the world’s largest clinical trials registry may be delaying the release of drug trial results and undermining rules designed to promote transparency, an investigation by The Scientist has found. 

Key study dates and other information are entered into the ClinicalTrials.gov database by trial researchers or sponsors, and are used by US science and regulatory agencies to determine legal deadlines by which results must be reported. The rules are supposed to ensure timely public access to findings about a potential therapy’s harms and benefits, as well as provide the scientific community with an up-to-date picture of the status of clinical research.

But neither the agencies nor staff overseeing the database routinely monitor individual trial records for veracity, instead relying on the person in charge of a given record to correctly declare information such as when a study ends and how many people were enrolled. ..."