Healthcare's dirty little secret: results from many clinical trials are unreliable

Heidi Gardner; Katie Gillies; Shaun Treweek

Healthcare's dirty little secret: results from many clinical trials are unreliable

Heidi Gardner, Katie Gillies, Shaun Treweek

Research output: Contribution to specialist publication › Article

Abstract

Clinical trials have been the gold standard of scientific testing ever since the Scottish naval surgeon Dr James Lind conducted the first while trying to conquer scurvy in 1747. They attract tens of billions of dollars of annual investment and researchers have published almost a million trials to date according to the most complete register, with 25,000 more each year.

Clinical trials break down into two categories: trials to ensure a treatment is fit for human use and trials to compare different existing treatments to find the most effective. The first category is funded by medical companies and mainly happens in private laboratories.

Original language	English
Specialist publication	The Conversation
Publisher	The Conversation UK
Publication status	Published - 18 Oct 2016

Keywords

Research
Healthcare
Aspirin
Clinical trials
NHS
drug treatment
Scurvy

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https://theconversation.com/healthcares-dirty-little-secret-results-from-many-clinical-trials-are-unreliable-67201Licence: CC BY-ND

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Healthcare's dirty little secret: results from many clinical trials are unreliable

Abstract

Keywords

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