Forbes June 13, 2019
Before any medical product or procedure is adopted, it must undergo clinical trials to evaluate its effectiveness. In a randomized clinical trial, subjects are assigned to two or more groups with some receiving the treatment and others receiving none, or a placebo. By comparing outcomes between the two groups, we should be able to see just how useful a treatment is. The subjects (and in the gold standard, the double-blind trial, the scientists as well) are not told which group they’ve been assigned to, theoretically ensuring that there is no bias in reporting about outcomes.
Unfortunately, not all randomized control trials are conducted under ideal circumstances – there can be ethical misconduct (such as financial pressures) as well as design...