We all know that in psychology there are certain guidelines that researchers must follow when conducting an experiment. These guidelines are put in place to ensure that the experiment is ethical, mainly for the participant's sake. The ethical guidelines are created by the APA (American Psychological Association) in which every research experiment must follow to be considered legal. Such experiments may be clinical trials for a new medication for a certain disease or disorder. When clinical trials are conducted they are legally considered ethical because they follow the rules. Click here for a quick video on the safety and ethics of clinical trials. However, what if you look at ethics of a clinical trial based on a personal perspective?
In a typical clinical trial, there are a number of participants (that qualify for the clinical trial with a disease or disorder) who are broken up into two groups. One group will actually get the new medication and the other group will get a placebo (a fake imitation of the drug), the placebo group is also known as the control group. The participants in these trials don't know if they are actually getting the placebo or the real drug. So if this medication does have outstanding results, half of the people in the trial could be cured or have a great health improvement, while the others have no results at all. The point is, some people feel that clinical trials are unethical because the people who are given the placebo get no benefit, if there is a benefit to the drug. Yet again, people know they may be given the placebo before participating in a clinical trial.
Personally, I feel that clinical trials are completely ethical. Clinical trials allow people to participate and be a part of finding a cure and helping others, while possibly helping themself as well. I wouldn't change anything about how they are set up because they need that control group to determine the effects of the drug.
So what do you think? In your own mind of what is right or wrong, do you agree with how clinical trials are conducted?
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