Clinical Trials — Are They Ethical?

Clinical trials, randomized, efficient, and credible, eliminate the and complexity of outcomes associated with complicated physiologic in observational trials, and thus since the 1950s have become the method of biomedical research. Passamani argues for the scientific and ethical correctness of randomized trials, with attention to the between the roles of physician and physician-scientist. Suggesting requisites for properly designed trials, including informed consent, equipose (protecting participants against toxicity), and the trial as a critical test of therapeutic alternatives, he attacks the notion randomized trials unethically disallow physicians from "playing hunches" applying promising but unproven therapy. His conclusion is that treatment effective according to scientific randomized trials, and endorsed by a of physicians, is more ethical and certain, and is a preferred treatment hunches. (KIE abstract)