In clinical trials of new medicines

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In clinical trials of new medicines

by madhur_ahuja » Wed Jul 15, 2009 7:18 pm
In clinical trials of new medicines, half of the subjects receive the drug being tested and half receive a physiologically inert substance—a placebo. Trials are designed with the intention that neither subjects nor experimenters will find out which subjects are actually being given the drug being tested. However, this intention is frequently frustrated because______

Which one of the following, if true, most appropriately completes the explanation?

(A) often the subjects who receive the drug being tested develop symptoms that the experimenters recognize as side effects of the physiologically active drug
(B) subjects who believe they are receiving the drug being tested often display improvements in their conditions regardless of whether what is administered to them is physiologically active or not
(C) in general, when the trial is intended to establish the experimental drug’s safety rather than its effectiveness, all of the subjects are healthy
(D) when a trial runs a long time, few of the experimenters will work on it from inception to conclusion
(E) the people who are subjects for clinical trials must, by law, be volunteers and must be informed of the possibility that they will receive a placebo
Source: — Critical Reasoning |

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by Mayur Sand » Wed Jul 15, 2009 7:40 pm
IMO (A) should be the one as , if some one who took drug being tested and shows signs that he took placebo , it completely derails experiment .

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by tohellandback » Wed Jul 15, 2009 7:41 pm
is it A?
the intention is to keep the subjects and the experimenters unaware of who is administered what. But if experimenters recognize the side effects, then they know that the person is administered the physiologically active drug.
The powers of two are bloody impolite!!

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by mehravikas » Thu Jul 16, 2009 1:14 pm
is it B?

Subjects are not aware whether they are given drug or a placebo, but if the all subjects believe that they are given drugs and show improvement then it is difficult to say whether the drug being tested is effective.

Nice question..

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by crackgmat007 » Thu Jul 16, 2009 2:41 pm
IMO E

The intention is to keep the subjects and the experimenters unaware of who is administered what. If by law, subjects must be made aware of what they are given, the intention is frustrated. However, I see the word 'frequently' before 'frustrated'. So not too sure.

OA pls.

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by pandeyvineet24 » Thu Jul 16, 2009 4:23 pm
IMO A, Experimenters cannot distinguish between subjects who have been administered drug from subjects who have been administered placebo

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Not E

by brick2009 » Thu Jul 16, 2009 8:26 pm
E:

Its argument is about the INTENTION of the clinical trial.

The conslusion: The INTENTION is frequently frustrated.

The premise : should talk about the reason for the Frustration....

A-B == talk about the effects of medicine on the patients (out of scope)
C&D -- are not "intention" of the trial..


Identify the SUBJECT of the argument.. it will be easy to pick the answer.

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by PAB2706 » Fri Jul 17, 2009 9:19 pm
Is it E

The intentions are that neither the subjects nor the experimenters know bout which subject is getting wht...

now, how can this intention be foiled? wht if there are some regulations which mandate making subjects aware of the effects of the experiment....then in that case the experiment goes flop and hence frustrates the intentions..

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by aj5105 » Sat Jul 18, 2009 9:02 am
it's (a).

Check these words 'frequently frustrated'. once you know the law, you know the law forever. experimenters might 've been frustrated by the law for the first time, but not frequently.

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by ranell » Sat Jul 18, 2009 9:40 am
(A) often the subjects who receive the drug being tested develop symptoms that the experimenters recognize as side effects of the physiologically active drug – CORRECT because if subjects of clinical trials develop side effects of the drug, it is undoubtedly that experimenters will know that these subjects have received a drug being tested and not placebo.
(B) subjects who believe they are receiving the drug being tested often display improvements in their conditions regardless of whether what is administered to them is physiologically active or not – out of scope
(C) in general, when the trial is intended to establish the experimental drug’s safety rather than its effectiveness, all of the subjects are healthy – it doesn’t matter whether the subjects are healthy or not
(D) when a trial runs a long time, few of the experimenters will work on it from inception to conclusion - it doesn’t matter how many experimenters and whether experimenters will work on clinical trials from the exception to conclusion
(E) the people who are subjects for clinical trials must, by law, be volunteers and must be informed of the possibility that they will receive a placebo – if the subjects of clinical trials must be informed whether they receive a placebo, these people will know whether they are given the drug being tested or not. So if the volunteers don’t know about the placebo and are actually given it, it is unlawful. There is a possibility that people won’t know about the placebo, but there is also a requirement to discover placebo receiving by the subjects – and at the same time there is no GUARANTEE THAT this requirement will be fulfilled. So E can be negated


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by khanshainur » Sun May 15, 2016 11:42 pm
I think A is the right answer here

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by Eric77Gorm » Sun May 15, 2016 11:44 pm
In my opinion A is the most logical one.