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Trials avoid high risk patients and underestimate drug harms

(www.nber.org)
174 points bikenaga | 1 comments | 08 Dec 25 19:07 UTC | HN request time: 0.202s | source
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ortusdux ◴[08 Dec 25 21:36 UTC] No.46197968[source]▶
Tangentially related, but I was surprised to learn about the lax attitude towards placebos in trials. Classes of drugs have expected side effects, so it's common to use medications with similar effects as placebos. Last I heard, there is no requirement or expectation to document placebos used, and they are often not mentioned in publications.
replies(3): >>46198567 #>>46198813 #>>46201911 #
1. youainti ◴[09 Dec 25 06:35 UTC] No.46201911[source]▶
Those are documented, but not necessarily in the paper. You can find the info at clinicaltrials.gov. Check out this current trial for breast cancer treatment by Merck Sharp & Dohme LLC for example. For the control arm, they are allowing doctors choice from a set of alternatives. Assuming the doctors are selecting control treatments to improve chance of survival, this test is comparing the new treatment to "the best known treatment for this specific cancer".

https://clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT07060807#study-plan