Epidemiology and The Ethical Issues

The speaker says epidemiology is the science of how we know. Explain what he means. Epidemiology attempts to explain how we know something. We attempt to explain it by looking at facts, statistics and coming up with studies that can lead us to a better understanding of what we are studying. Epidemiology does not provide cut and dry answers because there are so many factors that can play a role in our health. Some of the main factors are social, economic and genetic. Studies performed and data analysis are trying to get us closer to the “how we know” what we believe we know.Epidemiology and The Ethical Issues

What might be wrong with a clinical trial that compares a new medicine to a placebo rather than to a medicine that is the standard of care for treating the same illness? If a new drug were being tested and there was already treatment for that illness then testing against a placebo would be almost irrelevant. We already have a drug that is helping treat the illness. If you test it against the placebo you are testing it against no treatment, basically. The ideal test would be a comparison between the current drug and the new one. This would allow for a show of which is better at treating the illness. That should be the goal of these trials- to get the best care/treatment for the patients.

What are some ways to ‘rig’ a particular study on a new drug? The question above gives a great example of rigging a new drug study. If the new drug works at all it can be called a success. It does not take into account that it may be much less effective than a current treatment. Sometimes drugs are compared- but the way they are compared can skew the data. The new drug gets proper dosage but the comparative drug either gets too low or too high of a dosage. This can lead to false information. It is not an apples to apples comparison. Another way of rigging a study would be to simply omit the negative information. If the negatives are left out then the study seems to have a more favorable outcome.Epidemiology and The Ethical Issues