Opportunities for selective reporting of harms in randomized clinical trials: Selection criteria for non-systematic adverse events

Abstract

Selection criteria for reporting AEs vary across trials and across sources for individual trials. If investigators do not pre-specify selection criteria, they might "cherry-pick" AEs based on results. Even if investigators pre-specify selection criteria, selective reporting will produce biased meta-analyses and clinical practice guidelines. Data about all AEs identified in clinical trials should be publicly available; however, sharing data will not solve all the problems identified in this study.