Study finds 98% of child drug trials lack independent safety checks
'Only a tiny minority of drug trials on children have an independent safety monitoring committee to pick up potentially dangerous side-effects, a study has revealed.
Researchers from Nottingham University found that under 2% of the 739 international drug trials published between 1996 and 2002 had such committees of independent experts who would scrutinise data and warn, if necessary, that it was not safe to carry on.
Among the 2%, six trials had to be stopped early because of toxic effects on the child patients.'
