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. 2005 Mar;2(3):e72.
doi: 10.1371/journal.pmed.0020072. Epub 2005 Mar 29.

Is it always unethical to use a placebo in a clinical trial?

Andreas Stang  1 , Hans-Werner Hense, Karl-Heinz Jöckel, Erick H Turner, Martin R Tramèr
Affiliations

Is it always unethical to use a placebo in a clinical trial?

Andreas Stang et al. PLoS Med. 2005 Mar.

Abstract

Placebos are used in trials to conceal whether a treatment is being given or not and hence to control for the psychosomatic effects of offering treatment. Placebo-controlled trials are controversial. Critics of such trials argue that if a proven effective therapy exists, a placebo should not be used. But proponents argue that placebo trials are still crucial to prove the efficacy and safety of many treatments.

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Conflict of interest statement

Competing Interests: AS declares that he has no competing interests. HWH received lecture fees on several occasions from various pharmaceutical companies. His research activities are marginally funded (less than 5% of total) by industrial sponsors. KHJ is involved in many clinical and epidemiological projects, several of them sponsored by the pharmaceutical industry. EHT is on the speaker's bureaus of Eli Lilly, AstraZeneca, and Bristol-Myers Squibb. He has provided outside consulting to Bristol-Myers Squibb, Eli Lilly, GlaxoSmithKline, and Sepracor. He has also received funding for clinical drug trials, which can be spent only for research purposes and which has no effect on his income, from Abbott Laboratories, AstraZeneca, Bristol-Myers Squibb, and DOV Pharmaceuticals. MRT has been a scientific consultant to Pfizer, Merck, Janssen-Cilag, and Sintetica. He has also received lecture fees from various pharmaceutical companies.

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(Illustration: Margaret Shear, Public Library of Science)
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(Illustration: Margaret Shear, Public Library of Science)
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Comment in

  • The debate over placebo-controlled trials.
    Miller F. Miller F. PLoS Med. 2005 Jun;2(6):e157; author reply e187. doi: 10.1371/journal.pmed.0020157. Epub 2005 Jun 28. PLoS Med. 2005. PMID: 15971940 Free PMC article. No abstract available.

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