My response to Pat McGorry's criticisms of our story on his aborted drug trial:
At no point did we say the trial was aborted as a result of the ethics complaint. We gave Professor McGorry adequate space to explain that the decision was made before the complaint was lodged. However, the fact that an ethics complaint had been lodged about a trial in an extremely contentious area of medical research was entirely relevant to the trial being abandoned, regardless of timing, or whether it went ahead or not.
In his response, Professor McGorry made no attempt to address the key issues raised in the complaint - namely the concerns about a lack of evidence to support the use of antipsychotics in at risk populations.
Furthermore, at the time of going to press on Saturday 20th August the trial was listed on the Australian New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry as having not received ethics approval, and was still listed as prospective". Melbourne Health were unable to confirm the trial's approval, saying only that a complaint had been received and was being investigated. Professor McGorry was unable to supply documentation confirming its approval, however, we gave him the benefit of the doubt and reported his version of events in good faith.
The Trials Registry website was subsequently updated on Sunday August 21st to show that the trial had received ethics approval in July 2010. It is unclear why it has taken more than a year for the trial website to be updated.

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