Godlee’s appeal to Sir John Bell, ‘as an internationally respected scientist and clinician and a leader of clinical research in the UK to bring your influence to bear on your colleagues on Roche Board,’ is to be welcomed. But we fear her request will be ignored, as was Sir Ian Chalmers’ in 2007 [1].
There are few arguments that can be made for withholding clinical trial data, and they are potentially strongly influenced by conflicts of interest. One is an ethical issue over patient confidentiality; the second is that disclosure leads to patient harm. read more in the BMJ