3 ms·
Considering that all double blind medical studies are compared against a placebo, its really important to know who in the group the placebo would effect.
by lakeeffect 12y ago
Considering that all double blind medical studies are compared against a placebo, its really important to know who in the group the placebo would effect.
- DanBC 12y agoAren't a lot of them using "treatment as usual" as the control group? It's ethically difficult to withhold treatment from a group of people which is what you'd be doin with the placaebo control group.
- refurb 12y agoThis is correct. If a disease if life threatening or potentially disabling AND therapies already exist for it's treatment, you can't ethically put them on a placebo for a trial. However, there are many diseases that aren't that severe and diseases with no current therapies, so a decent number of trials are still run with just placebos as controls.