Open Questions: Cardiology Editors and Academics Mull Data-Sharing Pitfalls and Potential | tctmd.com

"One reason for publishing three opinion pieces exploring barriers to “open data” was to engage the broader cardiology community, an editor says.

Editors at JAMA Cardiology, along with the heads of two prestigious academic research organizations, have waded into the debate over data-sharing with the publication of three opinion pieces this week. As previously reported by TCTMD, a chorus of protests (and some praise) greeted a January 2016 proposal by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) to mandate sharing of clinical trial data as a prerequisite for publication. A formal plan for data-sharing would also be required as part of clinical trial registration—itself a mandatory step for trialists hoping to subsequently publish their results. A year and a half later, however, the ICMJE walked back their proposal, settling instead for a “data-sharing statement” as part of submitted papers, one that would include details on what type of data would be shared and when. The data-sharing component of a trial’s submission to ClinicalTrials.gov or the WHO International Clinical Trials Registry Platform kicks in for trials that intend to start enrolling patients on or after January 1, 2019...."