Mandate IPD for RCT publication

Editors and reviewers often cannot spot fake or fatally flawed clinical trials using only summary tables. Audits that required anonymized individual participant data (IPD) found roughly a quarter of trials were untrustworthy, versus ~1% detected from summaries. Making IPD submission and audit a precondition for publishing randomized trials would expose errors and fraud before they enter the literature. — This would change journal standards and strengthen the evidence base behind clinical guidelines, reimbursement, and public health policy.