Scepticism and mistrust about clinical trials

CLINICAL trials are essential to medical progress – they’re the only way of testing whether new drugs, surgical techniques or experimental devices actually work. But researchers are finding it increasingly difficult to find volunteers. A new study illuminates part of the problem. Americans are deeply suspicious of medical research, it found, and don’t trust their doctors to protect them from unnecessary risks when prescribing treatment.  

“This is really an indictment of medical research,” said Dr Giselle Corbie-Smith, co-author of the study published recently in the Archives of Internal Medicine. “If individuals distrust the research enterprise and are unwilling to participate in it, it could impede patient recruitment for clinical trials.”