In May 2005, the International Council for Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), a group of medical journal editors who have been responsible for introducing the "uniform requirements for manuscripts submitted to biomedical journals", released a joint editorial statement on registration of clinical trials . ICMJE journals will consider manuscripts reporting clinical trials only if the trial was registered in a public registry before patient recruitment started. Trials started before the ICMJE statements have been given a grace period within which they must be registered. This is an update of the ICMJE statement published a few months earlier . The statements are a first step to regulate and make transparent the messy and murky world of clinical trials.