Comment by BrandoElFollito
3 years ago
I think that patients should be able to choose, but in reality the advantage will be for them only.
Due to the lack of control groups them taking the pill does not make the science go forward (in the sense that it is an indication for the use).
I believe however that they're is a great interest in the stopping effect: the evidence that the treatment is ultimately harmful.
Still, this is a win-win:
- if the patient gets better, good for them. Does not help the pharma company.
- if the patient gets collateral negative effects, too bad for them (but they were very bad anyway). This helps the pharma company.
Coupled with euthanasia, this would be a humanitarian solution for the extremely sick.
I'm a bit puzzled why you couldn't extract useful information even _without_ a control group. Let's say we have a disease that we know that kills you. If you take the treatment and you don't die, we have pretty damn' positive evidence it works. The control group is the... You know... Many other people that don't take the medicine and die.
This is probably a good indication, but you do not know if it is the pill that is making the effect. It may also be the placebo effect.
It may also be that on day 6 you get better (no matter of you took the pill or not), and then worse on day 20, but much worse than without the pill.
Still, this is a statistical wink so to speak (paraphrasing xkcd (https://xkcd.com/552/)).
To be clear: I am all for patients experimenting on themselves when they do not have much to lose (and whenever they please, but they have to take their responsibilities then). Plus euthanasia if the experiment goes south.