The average person knows more about clinical trials today than was common at the beginning of my research career in the mid-1980s. I find that patient volunteers today are asking great questions when they come in for initial study appointments, perhaps as the result of the internet age. Twenty or thirty years ago I usually had to explain the meaning of the term “placebo,” but nowadays it seems that placebo has become incorporated into our everyday vernacular. (Just in case you don’t know, a placebo is a sham treatment that looks exactly like the active treatment).
Most of the studies we participate in at The Research Center randomly assign qualifying volunteers to a treatment “arm.” For example, a typical study will assign half of the volunteers to receive active treatment and the other half to receive the placebo treatment. The true nature of the treatment, active vs. placebo, is not known by anyone involved in the study until the study ends or unless medically required during the study.
You might be wondering why anyone would participate in a study offering a 50-percent chance of a placebo treatment. The answer is that at The Research Center we won’t participate in a study unless it’s designed to first and foremost take care of the patient. When we participate in a study with a placebo treatment arm, it’s because there is a benefit to the patient. For example, many studies we participate in are designed such that the investigational treatment is in addition to the current standard of care for the medical condition. In other words, every volunteer is receiving the usual treatment and half of them might be receiving additional effective treatment.
So, what’s the downside to “getting the placebo”? There really isn’t any. The volunteers who got the placebo still received the active treatment they would have received if they weren’t in the study. The volunteers who “get the placebo” aren’t giving up anything except their time to be part of a clinical study that someday might help them and other patients.
– Julie Carrico is Associate Coordinator of The Corvallis Clinic Clinical Research Center
