Getting the bad news with the good news about a drug.

Today's Philadelphia Inquirer has a good piece about drug studies that are tubed by the drug companies that sponsor them. Here's the set-up:

A doctor is thinking of trying a new drug on a 67-year-old patient because a study shows it works well in men only slightly younger. But the doctor doesn't know about a clinical trial that found serious side effects in older patients. Those results were never published.

John Schneider, a doctor of internal medicine and a member of the American Medical Association's Council on Scientific Affairs, fears that that scenario happens all too often.

Because drug companies often do not reveal the contents of studies that make their drugs look bad, he said, many doctors are frustrated because they sometimes prescribe medications without knowing all the information about them and possible side effects.

Now, the AMA is considering asking the federal government to open up this secretive world. The group's House of Delegates will vote during a meeting that starts Saturday on a resolution urging the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to create a registry of all clinical trials and their results.