perhaps due to a greater focus on the specifics of the intervention in these trials. Similarly, more is required when registering trial outcomes than the name. To be complete the record should contain the name of the outcome, information on the instrument that is being used to measure it (when applicable), and the time points at which it will be measured. Primary outcomes with a specific measure and a meaningful time frame were registered in only 31% of records evaluated by Zarin et al in 2005, and in 38% of records in the current study [33] . Given the critical importance of the primary outcome to the scientific integrity of the study it is of enormous concern that this key information is still not being made public in a way that is meaningful or informative. Since the primary outcome is the one that the study should be designed to evaluate, and hence used to calculate the sample size, it is also concerning that so many trials claim to have multiple primary outcomes with almost one in ten trials claiming four or more. The combined problem of multiple primary outcomes, lack of specification of the instrument being used to measure the outcome, and non-reporting of time frames leaves the door open for fishing expeditions and will not solve the problem of selective reporting bias. The trial records in this study were registered between June 2008 and June 2009 on any one of the nine registries that provided data to the ICTRP