What the doctor didn't say: the hidden truth about medical research

New York: Oxford University Press. Edited by Edward P. Richards (2006)
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Abstract

Most people know precious little about the risks and benefits of participating in a clinical trial--a medical research study involving some innovative treatment for a medical problem. Yet millions of people each year participate anyway. Patients at Risk explains the reality: that our current system intentionally hides much of the information people need to make the right choice about whether to participate. Witness the following scenarios: -Hundreds of patients with colon cancer undergo a new form of keyhole surgery at leading cancer centersnever -Tens of thousands of women at high risk of developing breast cancer are asked to participate in a major research study. They are told about the option of having both breasts surgically removed but not told about the option of taking a standard osteoporosis pill that might cut the risk of getting breast cancer by one-half or more. Patients at Risk written by two nationally prominent experts, is the first book to reveal the secrets that many in the research establishment have fought long and hard to keep from patients. It shows why options not commonly knownincluding getting a new treatment outside of a research studycan often be the best choice. It explains how patients can make good decisions even if there is only limited information about a treatments effect. And it does this through the eye-opening stories of what is happening daily to thousands of people. Day after day, we are learning how little we know about what really works. Headlines regularly announce that a previously unquestioned treatmenthormone replacement therapy, drugs such as Vioxx or Celebrexmay now be much riskier than we thought. The latest book in a surge of recent books criticizing the medical establishment (but the first to look at clinical trials specifically), Patients at Risk helps to empower patients to survive in a world of medical uncertainty, and makes positive recommendations for systemic reform.

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Citations of this work

How Payment For Research Participation Can Be Coercive.Joseph Millum & Michael Garnett - 2019 - American Journal of Bioethics 19 (9):21-31.
Informed Consent, Understanding, and Trust.David B. Resnik - 2021 - American Journal of Bioethics 21 (5):61-63.
Limits on risks for healthy volunteers in biomedical research.David B. Resnik - 2012 - Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics 33 (2):137-149.

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