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Registration wasn't mandatory until around 2007 or so. The studies from the article you linked are much older than that.


I can't tell if you're evading the question. Is every registered study a published study?


If, by published you mean published in a peer-reviewed journal, then no. Studies are registered before they start, but clinical trials fail or are withdrawn for various reasons (like safety problems, lack of funding, etc).

I imagine that registered studies that are completed are published if they have positive results, or negative results that contradict other well-known positive results. There's no reason not to publish if you get a good or interesting result. But publication can take years, so I don't think it's particularly unusual to see a completed study without a corresponding publication.

But again, the specific cases you linked predate the current registration and reporting requirements.


Sorry, but publication of negative results only happens in a number of cases.

1) Research is carried out by academics with no ties to phamaceutical companies. 2) The negative results make a competitors drug look even worse.

If neither of these things are true, then negative results just sit in a file-drawer somewhere. Compulsory registration (clinicaltrials.gov) will help with this for new medicines, but this will take years before we have any decent information




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