Clinical Trials.

I personally would not want to be a part of the testing process. There are too many risks and unanswered questions about the process to make me feel comfortable with the procedure. If you are sick and agree to a clinical drug trial, there is always a chance that you are actually taking a "sugar" pill that has nothing to do with curing your illness. (Wendler, 2012) Does that mean that your physician is not taking your symptoms seriously and is trying to underestimate the extent of your illness? Clinical trials may say that the risks involved are not any more harmful than the routine medical examination. (Wendler, 2012) But who is to make that determination that what is called risks to one person isn't going to harm another. There could be three people in the research group, the first receives commonly used medicine for the disease, the second receives the treatment that is experimental, and the third receives the placebo. Of these three people, possibly all three have some degree of improvement. None of these people know which control subject they are. So if they are feeling better and show some improvement with whatever treatment they are assigned, is their improvement just mind over matter?


Seriously, if I am have been diagnosed with a life-threatening disease and my physicians, who I am trusting with my life, tell me about a new type of medication that is being described as ground-breaking science. They think I should be one of the test subjects. I agree to talk to the clinical advisers about this medication. We discussed this information extensively. I am told that there are risks involved that may not even be known. I have to agree that I am aware that I may not have any improvement in my disease or that the treatment itself may also do harm to me. I know that I may not recover from the disease that I have, so why would I want to subject myself to something that may or may not help my recovery and may cause even more complications than I would otherwise. If I cannot be guaranteed that I will recover or at least have some improvement, are the risks actually going to be worth the time, the effort or the benefits? (Wendler, 2012)




Rosen, L. (2012, Sept 26). Clinical trials. Retrieved from [Only admins are allowed to see this link]
Wendler, D. (2012, Sept 26). The ethics of clinical research. Retrieved from [Only admins are allowed to see this link] ,

Katie I totally agree with your views on this subject, on whether or not you would choose your self to be subject to the chance of a cure a the chance of more issues. I like the idea that you gave in your response on why should we give ourselves up for the testing if we know that were not going to cured. We might even gain a new disease depending on how are bodies are accepting the new drug. This reason you gave makes me agree with you why would we put are self at risk if we don’t know if we will have benefited from doing the trial.
National marrow donor program. (2011). Retrieved from [Only admins are allowed to see this link]

Katie, by declaration of the helsinki convention every person is entitled to the best medical treatment available, doctors can not make choices on your behave for you to be in a trial. They are always risks in taking an unproven method of treatment but it will always have been tested before it gets to human trials. It has to go through rigorous testing and examination of its effects on things such as mice first. Chemotherapy itself is a vast array of different drugs that have all been tested, tried, and approved based on the fact that their positive effects far outweigh the negative ones. if it comes down to the wire of this may save your life, while the standard procedure just simply stalls death 9 out of 10 times you will take the risk of other effects, and if it is a life threatening disease they are not allowed to purposefully subjugate one party to a death sentence by giving them a placebo. They are ethically, morally, and legally not allowed to do it.