Europe's drug regulator opens vaults of clinical trials data
A heavy security presence awaits academics at the University of KwaZulu Natal campus in Westville, South Africa. After a library at the universi ty's nearby Durban campus was torched last month, police officers now regularly search staff and their cars for petrol bombs, says Kavilan Moodley, an astrophysicist there. Still, the institution remains open for research and teaching. On the other side of the country, all classes and lab based research at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT) in Cape Town have ground to a halt. The lockdown follows a non fatal attack late on 11 October in which three men were locked in a university building that was then set on fire. " The physical lockdown has been about a week. Since the arson attacks, we could not guarantee staff and students' safety, " says Mellet Moll, assistant dean for research in the engineering faculty. Campus violence is affecting many of South Africa's 26 universities and the impact is spilling over into research. Student protests against rising tuition fees began in 2015 as the #FeesMustFall campaign, which secured a freeze on fees for this academic year. But the protests flared up again and have become increasingly physically destructive since Sep tember, when the government announced that an 8% hike in fees would be permitted for the 2017 academic year. Many undergraduate classes around the country have been stopped, including those at the University of Cape Town (UCT) where face to face teaching has been suspended in all faculties. Last week, two security guards were attacked. The effects on research are uneven. Scientists at the UCT, the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg and the University of Pretoria say that, despite the distraction of protests and security, and difficulties in getting packages delivered, they are able to continue with their work. At the CPUT and the University of the Western Cape (UWC) in Cape Town, however, protests have been catastrophic for research. A senior academic at the UWC says that the situation is dire. With the POLITICS Violence rocks South African universities Student protests over rising tuition fees have stopped classes, closed institutions and slowed research. I n a move lauded as a landmark for transparency in medical science, the London based European Medicines Agency (EMA) has begun to release details of the full clinical trial data that it receives from pharmaceutical companies. On 20 October, the agency published around 100 clinical reports on two EMA approved medicines
Nature