4 ms·

How is SPCD a "fig leaf of a fudged trial"?

• richardjordan 14y ago
  I view the situations under which drug trials happen today to already be highly favorable to the drug companies. If even in those circumstances they're not getting strong signals that their drug is effective then changing the experiments until they show what you're hoping for is not the right approach. Indeed I think it's a good use of the term fudging.
  • uvdiv 14y ago
    If even in those circumstances they're not getting strong signals that their drug is effective then changing the experiments until they show what you're hoping for is not the right approach. Inconclusive results are not conclusive negative results. Granted, the drugs here have small effects which can be masked by noise -- they cure only a small fraction of people who take them. Drugs are far from curing everyone all the time, and that's still valid. A couple percentage points translates to thousands of lives, which is better than nothing (if costs are taken into account too).