Editing 2530: Clinical Trials
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==Explanation== | ==Explanation== | ||
− | + | {{incomplete|Created by MEDICAL PROCEDURE STEP DERF - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}} | |
− | The purpose of clinical trials in medicine is to make sure that a new medicine works and doesn't have serious side-effects. One example of the dangers of failing to make sure that it doesn't have serious side effects is {{w|thalidomide}}, which caused a lot of birth defects. In a clinical trial, the effect of a treatment is compared to the effect | + | The purpose of clinical trials in medicine is to make sure that a new medicine works and doesn't have serious side-effects. One example of the dangers of failing to make sure that it doesn't have serious side effects is {{w|thalidomide}}, which caused a lot of birth defects. In a clinical trial, the effect of a treatment is compared to the effect to a placebo to make sure it has a benefit. |
− | Before the invention of clinical trials, people generally didn't know, or at least had no way of confirming, whether medicines actually worked. Although | + | Before the invention of clinical trials, people generally didn't know, or at least had no way of confirming, whether medicines actually worked. Although a some herbs and medicines were stumbled upon, most medicine was no better than a placebo. A lot of medical treatments such as trepanation and bloodletting not only had no benefit, but were very likely to be harmful. |
− | + | At the time that this comic was published, the world was in the middle of the {{w|COVID-19 pandemic}}, which made the existence of clinical trials more relevant to the public, who waited eagerly for what sounded like good ideas to get through clinical trials and available to the general public...or fail clinical trials and not do that. | |
− | + | This is one of the few examples of an XKCD that doesn't really have a joke (although the presentation is reasonably amusing) in the main comic. The adoption of clinical trials was exactly a matter of going from idea -> sell it -> this is what we do now to adding "wait, formal tests first" between steps 2 and 3. | |
− | + | However, the title text is a nice bit of Monroean humor -- because we didn't have clinical trials as part of the "standard of care" before their adoption, we didn't need to do testing before we started using them. If we had had them as the standard of care, then we would have had to perform tests before we switched over (in concept; in practice of course that kind of political change is still not tested) and it would have taken longer. | |
− | + | ==Transcript== | |
+ | {{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}} | ||
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:1. Come up with new idea | :1. Come up with new idea | ||
:2. Convince people it's good | :2. Convince people it's good | ||
− | :[Scrawled in red as an afterthought, an arrow | + | :[Scrawled in red handwriting, as an afterthought, an arrow indicating it is between item 2 and the original item 3] |
:3. Check whether it works | :3. Check whether it works | ||
− | :3. [Now scribbled over and amended to "4."] | + | :3. [Now scribbled over and amended to "4."] :New idea is adopted |
− | :New idea is adopted | ||
:[Caption below the panel] | :[Caption below the panel] | ||
− | :The invention of clinical trials | + | :The invention of clinical trials. |
{{comic discussion}} | {{comic discussion}} | ||
[[Category: Science]] | [[Category: Science]] | ||
[[Category: Comics with color]] | [[Category: Comics with color]] | ||
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