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Arch Otolaryngol Head Neck Surg. 2001;127:1178-1180.

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AS EDITORS OF GENERAL medical journals, we recognize that the publication of clinical research findings in respected peer-reviewed journals is the ultimate basis for most treatment decisions. Public discourse about this published evidence of efficacy and safety rests on the assumption that clinical trials data have been gathered and are presented in an objective and dispassionate manner. This discourse is vital to the scientific practice of medicine because it shapes treatment decisions made by physicians and drives public and private health care policy. We are concerned that the current intellectual environment in which some clinical research is conceived, study subjects are recruited, and the data analyzed and reported (or not reported) may threaten this precious objectivity.

Clinical trials are powerful tools; like all powerful tools, they must be used with care. They allow investigators to test biological hypotheses in living patients, and they have the potential to change the standards . . . [Full Text of this Article]

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Editor's Note
William J. Richtsmeier
Arch Otolaryngol Head Neck Surg. 2001;127(10):1178.
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