Finding Clinical Trials During Government Shutdown

As a result of Congressional impasse, almost half of the approximately 15,000 FDA employees are subject to furlough.  In “15 Things to Know About FDA’s Operation During the Shutdown,”  Regulatory Focus editor Alexander Gaffney reports, “ClinicalTrials.gov, which is run by NIH, is being maintained by ‘minimal staffing,’ meaning that registering a trial may be difficult even if FDA does approve a trial to go forward.”

Over the past few months, I’ve been assembling a list of clinical trial finders for use in a future blog post.  I had planned to provide as complete a list of websites as I could, highlight benefits, draw comparisons, and include some details of operation.  I’m not close to that yet, but even though my research is incomplete, what I currently have may help someone now who is looking for very up-to-date clinical trial information.  So, without a passable transition sentence, here’s what I have.  I hope it turns out to be useful to someone.

(Note that some of these sites get their information, in part, from clintrials.gov, but they also use other sources that would hopefully be unaffected by the shutdown.)

• American Cancer Society Clinical Trial Matching Service
• Ask “Dory” (cancer trials)
• EmergingMedNavigator (cancer trials)
• MyClinicalTrialLocator.com.  For more information, see http://bit/ly/Zwyalz.
• NortheastALS Consortium  (NEALS)
• A PatientsLikeMe feature helps UK-based patients find clinical trials
• Health Canada’s Clinical Trials Database
• From the Boston-based company CenterWatch
• Center for Information and Study on Clinical Research Participation (CISCRP).  You can also call 1-877-MED HERO to speak with the Search Clinical Trials staff.

by Laurie Meehan