ArticlePLoS medicine2026
The data transparency crisis in research: Lessons from systematic reviews and meta-analyses.
Article in PLoS medicine, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Systematic reviews and meta-analyses underpin clinical guidelines and health policy, yet their validity may be compromised by limited access to underlying datasets and associated analytical code.Reliance on incomplete or inconsistently reported summary statistics forces researchers to use imputation and unverifiable assumptions, which can distort effect estimates and mislead clinical decision-making.The consequences extend beyond methodology: flawed evidence synthesis can influence treatment recommendations, healthcare spending, and patient safety, as illustrated by historical cases such as hormone replacement therapy.Despite widespread data-sharing policies, compliance remains low, enforcement weak, and monitoring almost non-existent, with many datasets remaining unavailable or inaccessible.This Policy Forum argues for strengthening enforceable data-sharing mechanisms, including clearer enforcement and pragmatic verification approaches within editorial workflows.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What Socratic holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the Socratic graph.