Doctors use bitcoin tech to improve transparency in trial research

 Two clinicians have devised a new system to prevent clinical trial documents being secretly altered to make new drugs look more effective than they are by using a similar system as the digital currency of bitcoin.Reporting in F1000Research, the doctors said that “undeclared changes to protocols is a major issue in clinical research.”This is because if initial analyses show a medication to be ineffective, researchers can continue to analyse new health outcomes until a positive result is found. But if only the positive findings are reported, the medication might be mistakenly approved.Despite an international mandate requiring all trials to be registered before the experiments begin, the problem still persists, as universal enforcement is difficult. Lobby groups, such as the U.K.-based AllTrials, are now trying to open up the availability of data, but major gaps still remain.So the doctors turned to bitcoin--a type of digital currency in which encryption techniques are used to regulate the generation of units of currency and verify the transfer of funds, and operate independently of a central bank.......................... [read full story]