The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors proposal for sharing clinical trial data and the possible implications for the peer review process

The recent proposal by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) for the sharing of clinical trial data will surely be a topic of much discussion within and outside academic circles (1). It is difficult to argue against the principle behind this proposal. Open and accessible data from a clinical trial may permit others to validate the findings, thereby increasing confidence in the results and importantly directing scarce resources to future work in the reproducible fields/areas that have clinical benefit. In fact, sharing data may be beneficial for all of science, not just clinical trials (2-4).