Serendip is an independent site partnering with faculty at multiple colleges and universities around the world. Happy exploring!
Reply to comment
Remote Ready Biology Learning Activities
Remote Ready Biology Learning Activities has 50 remote-ready activities, which work for either your classroom or remote teaching.
Narrative is determined not by a desire to narrate but by a desire to exchange. (Roland Barthes, S/Z)
What's New? Subscribe to Serendip Studio
Recent Group Comments
-
Serendip Visitor (guest)
-
rohit kumar (guest)
-
randhir kumar (guest)
-
Serendip Visitor (guest)
-
Anne (guest)
-
Florinda LG (guest)
-
omar (guest)
-
Chris Clauser (guest)
-
rain (guest)
-
Crystal Leonard
Recent Group Posts
A Random Walk
Play Chance in Life and the World for a new perspective on randomness and order.
New Topics
-
3 weeks 6 days ago
-
4 weeks 2 days ago
-
4 weeks 2 days ago
-
4 weeks 3 days ago
-
4 weeks 3 days ago
Validity of clinical trials
Normal
0
false
false
false
EN-US
X-NONE
X-NONE
MicrosoftInternetExplorer4
/* Style Definitions */
table.MsoNormalTable
{mso-style-name:"Table Normal";
mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;
mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;
mso-style-noshow:yes;
mso-style-priority:99;
mso-style-qformat:yes;
mso-style-parent:"";
mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt;
mso-para-margin-top:0in;
mso-para-margin-right:0in;
mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt;
mso-para-margin-left:0in;
line-height:115%;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:11.0pt;
font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast;
mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}
In one sense Prof Grobstein is right – a lot of the things we consider indispensable conditions of clinical trials are largely a result of the culture in which we find ourselves and the rigors that allopathic medicine considers necessary and/or acceptable.
But I would like to point out that these decisions and the place in which we find ourselves sin regard to ethics and clinical trials did not appear in a vacuum. They came about as a result of things that went awry (Thalidomide is the one big example) and the culture in which we find ourselves: lawsuits, expecting medicine to fix everything by hook or by crook and alla that. The people who sat up and came up with these laws didn’t come up with them because they are heartless compassion-less people. They came up with these very rigorous measures because it needed to be done – both to preserve puclic peace of mind and the researchers. I for one believe strongly in the current guidelines for clinical research. I don’t believe that a double-blind study is the ONLY or most effective way of verifying the effectiveness of a drug, but it sure is a pretty darned good and useful one. Simply put, I believe in the validity of clinical trials and don’t think they should be abolished.
However in another real sense Professor Grobstein is right about motivation ane compensation in clinical research. Something needs to be done about that, especially about the motivation. Money should not the most important motivating factor, as it seems to be with our pharmaceutical companies…