transparency

The Trump administration is considering a proposal to require all published research that has received federal funding to be made immediately available to the public at no cost. You would think that making our published science available for free would garner applause, but you would be wrong.
Observers claim that a study identified several clauses in old Coca-Cola research contracts, those that “could suppress ‘critical health information’ and indeed may have already done so.” And while “the documents contained no firm examples of Coca-Cola suppressing unfavorable research, … the study's authors say "what is important is that the provision exists."
The Trump Administration believes that TV ads for pharmaceutical drugs should display the list price. This helps toward lowering the cost of healthcare. However, officials might want to consider banning direct-to-consumer advertising altogether.
Given that insurers use backdoor access to your data (and the law has been unable to keep up, to prevent it), you may want to pay cash before you purchase your next bag of chips or condoms. And you ought to think twice when completing forms seeking demographic data on your race, or when you make a formal name change.
On Wednesday, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) proposed a plan to significantly increase the information reported on clinical trials related to drugs, devices, and other interventions. The proposed plan would apply to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) publicly accessible database, ClinicalTrials.gov.
Yesterday, the House of Representatives passed two bills aimed at reforming the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). One targeted secret science: their standard procedure of using data immune from review and replication. Not acceptable.