Covid-19: Greens/EFA MEP calls for more transparency on clinical trials

Brussels, 2 July 2020 - Several MEPs call for more transparency on the clinical trials for the Covid-19 vaccine. The request was followed by a reminder that billions of Euros were wasted in an inefficient drug to treat swine flu due to the lack of information on clinical trials.

In 2009, after the swine flu outbreak in Europe, European Union governments stockpiled the Tamiflu medicine, believing it would treat this strain. However, after billions of Euros spent, an independent research center was able to obtain the clinical trials data and to demonstrate how inefficient this drug was in treating swine flu symptoms.

Roche, the pharmaceutical company responsible for the development of the Tamiflu medicine, withheld information regarding the clinical trials data for five years.

“It is of crucial importance to have public access to clinical trial data to avoid that companies overplay positive results and underplay possible risks in order to attract public money,” the letter signatories say.

MEPs also point out that “at least one company working on a COVID-19 vaccine communicated their positive results without sharing its clinical trials data”.

Read the full letter below.

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