[naasking]

> Which simply dooms the terminally ill to fake treatment.

I wish people would stop saying this. First, controls aren't necessarily "fake treatment", they are often compared to other standard treatments.

Second, the treatment being tested can actually harm the patient more, therefore the people receiving your alleged "fake treatment" can actually come out better off. Which is the "fake treatment" now?

I don't disagree with your final point, but mainly with this increasingly pervasive and wrong framing of RCTs.

[FeteCommuniste]

Yes. Potentially life-saving drugs in RCTs are usually compared to "standard of care," i.e. already-approved treatments, not to placebos.

[qsera]

So if both the standard of care as well as the drug being trials have the same side effects, would they be included in the package insert/drug literature? Because the incidence rate of it would be same for both the groups?