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INDIFFERENCE OF SUBJECTS: AN ALTERNATIVE TO EQUIPOISE IN RANDOMIZED CLINICAL TRIALS

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 August 2002

Robert M. Veatch
Affiliation:
Philosophy, The Kennedy Institute of Ethics and Georgetown University

Extract

The physician who upholds the Hippocratic oath is supposed to be loyal to his or her patients. This requires choosing only the therapy that the physician believes is best for the patient. However, knowing what is best requires randomized clinical trials. Thus, clinicians must be willing to recruit their patients to be assigned at random to one of two therapies (or perhaps to a therapy or a placebo) in order to determine which is best based on the highest standards of pharmacological science.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
© 2002 Social Philosophy and Policy Foundation

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