Drug test secrecy - Standards of drug trials need to rise

It is disconcerting that for the past seven years nearly 2,000 drug trials have taken place latently here, but even more so is the fact that the Government has virtually ignored an EU directive requiring new standards.

The Irish Patients Association (IPA) is concerned that the trials have taken place with little or no public knowledge.

That 1,096 did take place since 1988 was the only fact elicited from the Irish Medicines Board (IMB) on foot of an enquiry from this newspaper.