Study: Transparency Lacking in Biomedical Literature

Despite a push for transparency in science, full data disclosure may be close to non-existent among published studies. Of 441 randomly selected biomedical research papers analyzed in a new study, none provided access to all the authors’ data. And only one of these papers shared a complete protocol. The results of this analysis, which could shed light on science’s reproducibility problem, were published today (January 4) in PLOS Biology.

“What was most surprising to me was the complete lack of data-sharing and protocol availability,” said study coauthor John Ioannidis, a professor of medicine and health research and policy at the Stanford University School of Medicine. “That was worse than I would have predicted.”

“This study confirms what most of us already know—that the current clinical research enterprise is set up in a way that researchers consider data their own assets,” said cardiologist Harlan Krumholz, leader of the Yale University Open Data Access Project, who was not involved in the work. “There is little investment, effort, or tools to support data-sharing broadly,” he said. “The advantage...