Assessing the Gold Standard — Lessons from the History of RCTs

Over the past 70 years, randomized, controlled trials (RCTs) have reshaped medical knowledge and practice. Popularized by mid-20th-century clinical researchers and statisticians aiming to reduce bias and enhance the accuracy of clinical experimentation, RCTs have often functioned well in that role....

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:The New England journal of medicine Vol. 374; no. 22; pp. 2175 - 2181
Main Authors: Bothwell, Laura E, Greene, Jeremy A, Podolsky, Scott H, Jones, David S
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: United States Massachusetts Medical Society 02.06.2016
Subjects:
Clinical trials
Disease
Drug Approval - history
Drug Approval - legislation & jurisprudence
Drug Industry - history
Female
History of medicine
History, 20th Century
History, 21st Century
Humans
Legislation, Drug - history
Medicine
Pregnancy
Randomized Controlled Trials as Topic - ethics
Randomized Controlled Trials as Topic - history
Randomized Controlled Trials as Topic - statistics & numerical data
United Kingdom > UK
United States > US
ISSN:0028-4793, 1533-4406
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Over the past 70 years, randomized, controlled trials (RCTs) have reshaped medical knowledge and practice. Popularized by mid-20th-century clinical researchers and statisticians aiming to reduce bias and enhance the accuracy of clinical experimentation, RCTs have often functioned well in that role. Yet the past seven decades also bear witness to many limitations of this new “gold standard.” The scientific and political history of RCTs offers lessons regarding the complexity of medicine and disease and the economic and political forces that shape the production and circulation of medical knowledge. The Rise of RCTs Physicians and medical researchers have attempted for millennia . . .
Bibliography:SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
ObjectType-Commentary-1
content type line 14
ObjectType-Article-1
ObjectType-Feature-2
content type line 23
ISSN:0028-4793
1533-4406
DOI:10.1056/NEJMms1604593