Scientists Hate the NIH's New Rules for Experimenting on Humans

https://www.wired.com/story/scienti...nting-on-humans/amp?__twitter_impression=true


"This week, after almost a decade of work, some new rules go into effect for researchers funded by NIH. If they’re using human beings in their experiments, most of them now have to register their methodologies on a government-built website, clinicaltrials.gov.

They have to promise to share whatever they find, even if they don’t prove what they hoped—especially if they don’t prove it. They have to get trained up in modern clinical practices."

 

Oh how they need this in the UK.

 

It looks like an excellent plan to require preregistration of all clinical trials including approved protocols for outcome measures and shared data. And all trials funded having to lodge their outcome data, even if they don't get published.

But it seems to have hit a snag with defining what is a clinical trial, and ending up including basic science as well. I'm not clear whether they have sorted out the distinction between basic science and clinical trial to the satisfaction of the scientists.

It seems to me that everyone who gets government funding for medical research in any country should have to publish their protocol, stick to it, and publish their data, whether it's a clinical trial or basic science. I'd extend that to pharmaceutical company, charity or privately funded research too.

 

Do scientists really hate that question of scientists should be pleased to come to any firm conclusion whether something is approved or disapproved. Either way it adds the scientific knowledge and that’s a success. Success in science doesn’t mean something happy and candy coated, it means weblearn something about nature, and Nature is usually cruel.

 

Good idea, but its all in the execution. Just because scientists don't like it doesn't mean its bad, but if it is red tape and inconsistent criteria then they need to fix that.
Though I'm most impressed they made this kind of procedural improvement without there being a tragedy involved

 

The US requires an IRB, institutional review board.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institutional_review_board