Rick Adams wrote:
> The alternative treatments approach, on the other hand, would not be
> testing the specific therapy alone, but would instead be comparing it to
> another known therapeutic system--a very different kind of experiment.
... I'll stick to my premise that in some cases
> double-blind research is not practical, and alternate ways of assessing
> the relative merits of a therapeutic approach (i.e., case study,
> longitudinal study, etc.) must be accepted.
>
> Rick
Many medical treatment studies are not double blind. I was concerned
when a friend who enrolled in a Phase III clinical trial discovered that
she was in the "cold" arm of the study. She wanted the "hot" treatment
(w/radioactive isotope) and was very disappointed. One could argue that
her disappointment might mediate the effects of the treatment (my
concern). Moreover, one might expect that the PI and study physicians
would be less optimistic or excited about her eventual outcome and
somehow further influence the patient's expectations. But there was no
way to practically (or ethically) arrange this as a double blind study.
It's not perfect science, but life's not perfect. In the real world
patients aren't matched and physicians/therapists aren't equally skilled
or caring. Case studies and longitudinal follow up are valuable and
valid methods for research.
BTW, "cold" worked as well as hot at one year follow up...time will
tell.
All my best,
Pam
