Don’t believe everything you see on clinicaltrials.gov

The FDA has been busy castigating companies that sell unapproved and potentially dangerous stem cell therapies, but over at the NIH-run clinicaltrials.gov, those same companies are free to list their trials and, effectively, advertise their problematic products.

As STAT’s Eric Boodman reports, bioethicists and biologists say that amounts to federal doublespeak. Allowing dubious vendors to list trials on a government-run register grants them an unearned air of legitimacy and puts patients at risk of harm, critics say.

“You can concoct this bogus appearance of science, call it a clinical study, recruit people to pay to participate in your study, and not only that: You can actually register on clinicaltrials.gov and have the federal government help you promote what you’re doing,” said University of Minnesota bioethicist Leigh Turner. “That struck me as both dangerous and brilliant.”

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