ABSTRACT
In being shaped by the specific context of medical practice, clinical trials, even the most sophisticated randomized controlled trials, as I already have shown in chapters 3 and 5, are not value-free measuring devices that objectively evaluate the efficacy of new therapies. Like any other medical device associated with our daily lives randomized clinical trials incorporate the beliefs and ideas of the persons and organizations who developed them and then are moulded by those implementing the methodology. 3 The final part of the book’s narrative provides an exemplary case to illustrate the complexities surrounding the process of therapeutic evaluation by means of clinical trials.
