Professionals in any field would agree that transparency is a vital thing to keep a credible reputation within the industry.

Professionals in any field would agree that transparency is a vital thing to keep a credible reputation within the industry.

After reading the prompt for the discussion this week, my immediate thought was of the proposition by (the “late”) Scott Pruitt earlier this year that would block and disregard studies that do not have raw data publicly available. This policy was suggested for the reasons we have learned in this module. Availability of this data would increase transparency and allow evidence to be corroborated and confirmed. While I think all of us in the class would agree this is important in the scientific and medical field, the argument was that “transparency” was being “weaponized”. Researchers could have to spend thousands of dollars for large study registries all to deidentify data and the available research that the EPA would use for their decisions and actions could be dramatically limited. (Here is a link: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/26/climate/epa-scientific-transparency-honest-act.html)

Although a somewhat different issue with transparency in this prompt, I think this previous current event issue demonstrates one of the items investigators may be concerned with if databases are shared publicly. Much more funding will need to be allotted to de identifying data. While I personally think this would be important for industry and big pharma, smaller university researchers may be disproportionately impacted. Furthermore, if researchers disclose to participants that their information will released publicly, albeit de-identified — Do you think this would dissuade an otherwise willing participant to not join a research study?

Classmate 2:

Professionals in any field would agree that transparency is a vital thing to keep a credible reputation within the industry. Personally, I believe transparency is something that I look for in any form of company I will be involved in; it is a vital characteristic of any business. Making their databases open to the public after submission of a manuscript might raise concerns for many investigators. One major concern that comes to mind, is the public having access to all aspects of their research may lead to individuals not wanting to participate in some of their further studies. Without breaking any laws or ethics some individuals still might not agree with their previous study, leading them to not participate in any future research with that investigator. Another concern, I believe is valid for investigators with sharing their databases the possibility of losing funding to their project. Studies will be able to be compared easier to other studies; full transparency will allow investors in research to pick more carefully who they fund.

While I think that this is something we should strive for in clinical research, it definitely has its grey areas. With anything in the medical field we need to experiment, and do more research on the topic to move it further in the industry