Ethical Issues in Medicine Ethical Dimensions of Research Studies

Ethical issues in medicine: Clinical trials and cancer patients.

Clinical trials, in which a treatment or a drug is tested upon human beings, are a vital part of bringing a drug to market. It is essential that the treatment be shown to be safe, effective, and better than existing treatments of similar cost and safety levels. However, when developing a drug for patients who are facing a potentially terminal diagnosis such as cancer patients, the ethics of using clinical trials becomes extremely murky. "To advance the science of medicine and improve the care of patients, we need the objective data that can only be gained from clinical trials, in which outcomes are dispassionately analyzed. But the patients in cancer trials are not data points; they are vulnerable people who often view a clinical trial as perhaps their last hope" (Markman 2003: 1008). They are human beings -- the mothers, daughters, fathers, and sons of loved ones -- who are in desperate need of hope and care. But...

"Herein lies the ethical dilemma. Although, in theory, these patients may experience some clinically relevant benefit from the treatment such as improvement in symptoms or prolongation of survival, the realistic chances of this are slim in most (though certainly not all) phase 1 trials" (Markman 2003: 1008). In fact, for many patients who have undergone many treatments, participating in a Phase 1 trial may actually reduce the quality of their life, because of the side effects of the unproven medication on their delicate constitutions. Given the patients' desperation to find some way to prolong their lives, it is difficult for them to give full consent in a truly reasoned fashion. The scientists in charge of the study have an obvious vested interest in encouraging…