We recently got a call from a SciFri listener in Florida who has autoimmune arthritis. He told us that over the years he’d taken 10 drugs, and each out eventually stopped working. He then tried to enroll in a clinical trial for a new drug for his condition, but he was rejected specifically because he was on his 10th drug.
Today we’re digging into clinical trials and how they work. Are there incentives for drug developers to leave out “problem children”? Or is it more complicated than that? Flora talks with lawyer and bioethicist Holly Fernandez Lynch about what clinical trials are designed to do, how participants are chosen, and where FDA regulation comes into play.
Guest:
Dr. Holly Fernandez Lynch is an associate professor of medical ethics and health policy at the University of Pennsylvania.
Other episodes you may enjoy:
Why so many studies can’t be replicated
Can ‘Suggestion-Box Science’ Make Public Health More Useful?
Transcripts for each episode are available within 1-3 days at sciencefriday.com.
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Science Friday
Big cats used to roam the entire United States. You might know them as mountain lions, pumas, cougars, or catamounts. Though they go by many names, they're actually all the same species.
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Astronomers using the James Webb Space Telescope have observed clouds on a hot gas giant exoplanet called WASP-94A b, some 700 light-years away. But these clouds aren’t your usual wisps of water vapor...
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We recently got a call from a SciFri listener in Florida who has autoimmune arthritis. He told us that over the years he’d taken 10 drugs, and each out eventually stopped working. He then tried to enr...
The herbicide paraquat is so toxic it’s banned in over 70 countries. But its use in the U.S. is growing, despite known links to Parkinson’s disease. In southeastern Mississippi, an industrial plant is...
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A recent study simulated the extreme temperatures and pressure of the Earth’s interior by squeezing a sample between diamonds and heating it with a laser. In those simulations, researchers found that...
Just about every animal with a backbone yawns (maybe even dinosaurs), but why we do it is still something of a mystery. A SciFri listener from Texas recently spotted some research that suggests yawnin...
An upcoming resupply mission will carry tumor samples to the International Space Station for research. Experiments in microgravity have yielded shocking results: Some tumors triple in size in just 10...
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Scientists studying climate models say there’s a high chance this will be an El Niño year—and that we could be in for a “super” El Niño. The difference is indicated by sea surface temperatures in part...
In April, the crew of Artemis II got an unprecedented tour of the far side of the moon, and they brought back a proverbial shoebox full of pictures. Lunar scientist Kelsey Young stayed on Earth, and h...
When Kemi Doll was in medical school, she learned that Black women are twice as likely to die from uterine cancer as white women, and also suffer disproportionately from other uterine-related conditio...
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