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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…