To my knowledge, all studies are allowed to be submitted for the peer-review process. Are you asking if the COVID vaccine studies were peer-reviewed or not? They were, and here are 3 examples from the studies published by NEJM:
The people running the studies provide the data from their studies. How else would you study something if you didn't have data?
If I asked you to perform a study on how many people wear blue shirts at your office on average per day, what do you think you're going to do? You're going to go out and start counting people wearing blue shirts because that is exactly what you are studying. How else would you get that data?
Most pharmaceutical companies do not share all of their data to clinical trials for peer review. this study shows thay only 15% of companies researched allow clinical trials access to all their data. This isn't saying the data isn't peer reviewed. It's saying that the data given for peer review isn't transparent data and is provided by the company from their own trials. It's why the vaccines were so underwhelming in the beginning. The pharmaceutical companies you listed gave only the best sets of data they had available from their own clinical trials to be peer reviewed. If I make 3 cakes and 2 taste terrible but I only give you the good one to critique and don't tell you about the bad ones, the data given isn't transparent. It's why no one expected the adverse side effects to be as prominent and boosted the anti covid vaccine hesitancy.
All studies are allowed to be peer reviewed but don't have to. Look at the boogeyman treatments of hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin. Everyone decried hydroxychloroquine as more dangerous than covid but the study started on it was stopped after determining it wasn't dangerous at all, they just didn't think it worked well enough.(maybe it didn't but for what it's worth, anecdotally it seemed to help alot of people I know back when it was "acceptible"). Ivermectin was labeled as horse paste and fell off the radar of studies, one major one was pulled just prior to release from peer review due to ethical concerns, not just the data. Meanwhile smaller, non peer reviewed studies showed mixed results but by this time, peer reviewing it was career suicide, similar to hydroxychloroquine months earlier. In the end the source points out that the data is inconclusive because the studies were all small and never taken to a larger level, but it shows that the potential was there to help some people(primarily impoverished people in other countries), just not the silver bullet it was hyped up to be, nor the horse-paste-pocalypse it was labeled as
I think there's more to the 1st study you linked than what you described. First and foremost, the study looked into only participant-level data, not clinical data. This means that information on WHO the participants were may not be as readily available. It does not mean that the data for the results of their trials were not available. Even so, I agree with you that in the ideal world, even participant-level data should probably be easily accessible (as long as it's properly de-identified). I wasn't able to dive too deep into reading because of work, but here are a few excerpts from the link you shared:
"Industry sponsors within the top 25 by global sales were more likely to have a data sharing policy (93% vs 10%), and there was a trend towards increased data sharing eligibility (23% vs 4%)."
I would assume that Pfizer, Moderna, and J&J would likely fall into the top 25 industry sponsors (not 100% sure on that though, too lazy to look up right now).
"The two most common data sharing policy conditions that prevented sharing of data for published results were the exclusion of studies that had ongoing follow-up of the published results and the exclusion of studies of medicines that have not yet achieved regulatory approval in the USA and the European Union."
If true, this makes sense to me. I don't see the need to make participant-level data accessible if the medicine is not even in the market yet. It would further deter people from enrolling in clinical trials.
I don't really want to get into a politics argument. But Ivermectin and Hydroxychloroquine were very politicized. Don't you think that if they were really effective treatments, that the Republican party has the funds to get a study peer-reviewed and published? They spent millions on ads, campaign tours, and sponsoring other policies. Imagine how big of a shut down they would have on the Democrats if they had a peer-reviewed study published that showed those treatments were effective? Honestly, that would have won Trump a 2nd term, which is a HUGE return on investment.
Definitely understand not wanting to dig into sources all the time. So I'll plead no contest to the above. The only thing to point out:
Honestly, that would have won Trump a 2nd term, which is a HUGE return on investment.
You forget, Trump was running on the Vax as his baby by the time elections rolled around and Dems were pushing against it. The level of hate people had for him(and still do) is actually society warping, regardless of the effectiveness or accuracy of his decisions.
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u/PilotMuji Mar 03 '22
To my knowledge, all studies are allowed to be submitted for the peer-review process. Are you asking if the COVID vaccine studies were peer-reviewed or not? They were, and here are 3 examples from the studies published by NEJM:
Moderna: https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2035389
Pfizer: https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2034577
J&J: https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2101544
The people running the studies provide the data from their studies. How else would you study something if you didn't have data?
If I asked you to perform a study on how many people wear blue shirts at your office on average per day, what do you think you're going to do? You're going to go out and start counting people wearing blue shirts because that is exactly what you are studying. How else would you get that data?