Clinical Trial Ethics

Yup. It's like wanting placebo controlled trials for cancer. It would be unethical and ungodly harmful to condemn people to suffering and death just so people could gather data that wouldn't even compare the results to the current best practices.

That depends a lot on the quality of the treatment. If it is a good treatment with some risks, that makes sense. However, if you don't enforce any minimum quality for the treatment, this is nothing more than misusing the patient's situation for scientific experiments.Rephrased with some exaggeration: "Our patient will die anyway, so let's run the experiments. Maybe one of our experiments is successful. If not, who cares?"I believe the main dissent here is whether t

That, and with respect to:> Alzheimer’s sounds like a good candidate, or near-fatal diseases (6-month-to-live cancer) - you literally have nothing to lose!But others have a lot to lose. No matter how experimental the application and how much consent and oversight - if the drug is being used on people before finishing all testing and without taking all necessary precautions, you increase the risk of side or adverse effects. That in turn will likely delay the approval of the drug for all

I did work on medical devices and we did test on humans for non-life threatening conditions. The treatment wasn't that invasive though and it would never have had too bad side effects, the risk could be sufficiently reduced and the suffering of patients was greater than what the therapy could inflict.Personally I wouldn't advertise any patriotism here, it is very important not to take advantage of desperate people here as long as the experimental treatment cannot possibly help again

It’s unethical to gamble your citizenry on untested medical interventions regardless of outcome. There was enough time to sponsor a trial.

It’s a scam to be able to try experimental treatments for your otherwise fatal disease?

I'm sorry to hear this.My idea is not about quack medicine. People should be discouraged from using quack medicine, and made abundantly informed that it's guaranteed not to work, while consuming their precious time alive which other treatments might extend.My idea is about something that has promising results in scientific trials, but may carry unknown risks, and so is not yet approved. The risks may be worth it, because the alternative is a certain and quick death.The patient

With their approval, naturally. Why not explain what we have, that there unknown risks, etc, but it could save you. The alternative is a painful, awful death anyhow so why not?I feel like a control group is immoral at this point.

It is so sad that there are so many vultures eager to make a profit out of desperate people with terrible diseases. This is why ethical guidelines and FDA regulations are for, after all. Of course it would be great to judge case-by-case (the scientist in the article is a real hero!). I would like to see a detailed cost-to-benefit study on the topic of allowing unapproved treatments for terminally ill patients.

This is an objection that could be raised against literally any clinical trial.If we knew that a treatment was effective and safe, it would indeed be immoral to withhold it from people. But we don't know that. Finding that out is the whole point of having trials!