Sharing Clinical Research Data: The Time for Excuses is Over
This week the BiomedCentral blog announced in an article the news that the Trials Journal (another excellent Open Access journal from BiomedCentral), has launched an ongoing thematic series on ‘Sharing clinical research data.’
The highlights include:
- A code of conduct for data sharing and re-use, and
- Recommendations for funders and ethics committees to increase raw data availability, published last year.
In January 2010 editors of Trials took this initiative further by producing Guidelines for authors, editors and peer reviewers on sharing trial data while protecting patient privacy.
Among the latest addition to this series, Sharing clinical research data in the United States under HIPPA and the Privacy Rule, lawyer James D Miller explains how the requirements of the US Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and the Privacy Rule may in fact be stifling research by limiting the sharing of final research data.