Prior disclosure need not be a problem for journals

Abstract

In their recent editorial in JRSM, Liz Wager and Kamran Abbasi boldly suggest that medical journal editors have ‘deserted the moral high ground’ in failing to welcome legal requirements for publicly accessible reporting of clinical trial results.1,2 Trial researchers and sponsors may be interested to know of PLoS Medicine's policy on results disclosure. As set out in a recent editorial,3 we and the other PLoS journals support public disclosure of results of all clinical trials; our guidelines to authors state that: ‘Prior disclosure of results on a public website such as clinicaltrials.gov will not affect the decision to peer review or acceptance of papers in PLoS journals’.4 We hope that editors of journals will pay close attention to Wager and Abbasi's argument that journal articles can provide context, commentary and interpretation of the results of clinical trials; moreover, we propose that journals should provide mechanisms for establishing the quality of research and include similar statements to that of PLoS Medicine in their editorial policies.