Why Clinical Research Can’t Guarantee the Right Medical Answers

It’s Great! Oops, No It Isn’t

Why Clinical Research Can’t Guarantee

the Right Medical Answers

The people are confused because we do not understand the process behind these conflicting results. Our health, and in fact, our very lives are dependent on clinical trials, but we know little about them.

This book explains the issues the public needs to be aware of when it comes to clinical research. It uncovers the problems in medical investigations that can not be overcome no matter how much care and diligence medical researchers bring to a research project. The basic premise that drives the writing is that it is impossible for medical researchers to guarantee that they can get all the right

answers from a single study. No matter how good the investigators are, no matter how well a study is planned, no matter how carefully the plans are executed and no matter how conscientiously the results are analyzed and interpreted – the answer may still be wrong. The deck is stacked against medical researchers and

the public – you – should be skeptical of the results no matter how impressive they seem on the surface.

Do not, however, think that a trial cannot come up with an accurate answer. Many trials have found the correct answer, but there’s never certainty that that will happen. Getting a correct result requires a combination of skill and luck. And furthermore,

the correct result from a single study is almost always a narrow finding.

The drug is proven effective, but its safety still needs to be established. Or perhaps the drug, given in a fixed regimen does not cause kidney damage, but its effect on other systems (heart, liver, lungs etc.) remains unanswered and the results when a different regimen is given may be very different. Note that I emphasize the evaluation of drugs throughout the book because drug testing is the dominant form of medical research and provides many valuable examples of the kind of problems that can be encountered