The Ethics of conducting a placebo-controlled trial when there are effective treatments available, particularly for serious or life threatening diseases, has been debated over the years. The Declaration of Helsinki states that the benefits, risks, burdens and effectiveness of a new intervention must be tested against the best current proven intervention. The exception is when there is no effective treatment available, when the potential harm to subjects receiving no treatment is not serious or irreversible. For this reason, conducting placebo-controlled studies for life-threatening diseases in developing countries is considered unethical.
The example of the AIDS trials, is one of the known cases that has heightened ethical concerns. In 1997, controversy arose over a series of placebo-controlled trials, aimed to find a treatment to lower the rate of maternal-to-infant transmission of HIV in developing countries. The controversial studies followed an earlier National Institutes of Health sponsored study conducted in the United States which proved that maternal-to-infant transmission of HIV could be reduced by two-thirds when AZT is administrated continuously to women as early as the 14th …show more content…
This is unacceptable way of thinking, because the subjects are offering financial benefits to the drug companies through their participation and they deserve to receive the standard of care. Furthermore, using a placebo when an effective treatment is available, means that individuals in the control group in developing countries are being treated differently from patients in developed countries where a control group would receive an effective treatment. This may imply that they are not considered equally
The example of the AIDS trials, is one of the known cases that has heightened ethical concerns. In 1997, controversy arose over a series of placebo-controlled trials, aimed to find a treatment to lower the rate of maternal-to-infant transmission of HIV in developing countries. The controversial studies followed an earlier National Institutes of Health sponsored study conducted in the United States which proved that maternal-to-infant transmission of HIV could be reduced by two-thirds when AZT is administrated continuously to women as early as the 14th …show more content…
This is unacceptable way of thinking, because the subjects are offering financial benefits to the drug companies through their participation and they deserve to receive the standard of care. Furthermore, using a placebo when an effective treatment is available, means that individuals in the control group in developing countries are being treated differently from patients in developed countries where a control group would receive an effective treatment. This may imply that they are not considered equally