What are the risks of participating in a randomised clinical trial?
Some degree of risk is attached to medical treatment and clinical trials just as it is to life in general. The known risks of any clinical trial have to be very clearly set out before anyone is asked to participate. Great importance is given to providing enough information to patients so that they may give their ‘informed consent’ knowing all the facts. Many clinical trials compare treatments that are already being prescribed by doctors and are in common use. In those cases there is already a lot of knowledge about the safety of the treatments and what is being investigated is the best way to use these treatments. Potential risks always have to be justified in the context of the illness being treated. For example it would be unacceptable to use a new treatment that gave great results for sore throats if that treatment had a high risk of serious side effects. A sore throat is a nuisance but a minor one and does not justify taking a potentially dangerous drug. On the other hand a new tre
