Healthy Skepticism Library item: 13230

Warning: This library includes all items relevant to health product marketing that we are aware of regardless of quality. Often we do not agree with all or part of the contents.

Publication type: book

Evans I, Thornton H, Chalmers I.
Testing treatments: better research for better healthcare.
London: British Library 2006
http://www.jameslindlibrary.org/pdf/testing-treatments.pdf

Abstract:

How do we know whether a particular drug, therapy or operation really works, and how well? How reliable os the clinical evidence? Are clinical trials truly unbiased? And is current research fully focussed on the real needs of patients? Such timely and pressing questions are raised and resolved in this probing enquiry into modern clinical research, with far-reaching implications for daily medical practice and patient care. What emerges is the surprising truth that clinical research is neither as unbiased, nor as relevant as patients have every right to expect, but that everyone- patients, doctors and researchers – can do much to change current practice and achieve better healthcare.

Aimed at both patients and professionals, Testing Treatments builds a lively and thought-provoking argument for better, more reliable, more relevant research, with unbiased or “fair” trials, and explains how patients can work with doctors to achieve this goal.

Expertly and thoroughly researched, but never dry or dull, the fast-moving commentary, spanning the gamut of illness and therapy – from mastectomy to thalidomide – explores a vast range of revealing case studies, enlivened throughout by entertaining anecdotes and vivid eyewitness accounts drawn from the direct experience of patients, practitioners and researchers.

Keywords:
Downloadable in full in English and Arabic under Creative Commons as .pdf from James Lind Library: http://www.jameslindlibrary.org/testing-treatments.html Print editions also available in German, Chinese and Japanese.