Europe relaxes regulations on the sharing of medical data

Europe's relaxation of medicines data sharing regulations The European Medicines Administration (EMA) recently announced that it will relax the controversial draft rules to open up clinical trial data for public scrutiny In particular, the agency said it would allow researchers to download, save and print experimental data for academic and non-commercial research purposes The previous draft only allowed them to view data on a computer screen. Last month, researchers and EU ombudsmen lashed out at the EMA's draft policy on data sharing, calling it too restrictive and impractical Now they welcome the newly announced policy, but warn that there are other controversial provisions in the final version. "This is a good move," S?le Lane, head of campaigns at Sene, a British pressure group, said in a statement It means researchers can double-check, compare and share clinical trial information It is impossible to work by allowing researchers to read information on the screen alone But Emily O'Reilly, the EU ombudsman, said she did not know whether the EMA would consider her concerns and review the final version carefully "The draft provides that data access and use is applicable to a variety of statutory situations, but only in limited circumstances, important clinical trial information can be revised," O'Reilly said O'Reilly added: "What the Ombudsman is puzzled about is why the EMA abandoned the original draft policy introduced in 2012 and replaced it with a completely different draft "The Chinese Science Daily (2014-06-17, 3rd Edition International) read more related reports on Nature