Experimental Therapies Aid Cancer Patients

Newsday follows the big news story from yesterday: Christine Grady, who has up until now written mostly about how research should be described so that it does not recruit subjects in coercive ways or under false pretenses, has reached a somewhat ironic conclusion in her most recent research:

"There has been this general worry that Phase I oncology trials have a very low prospect of benefit for patients," said Christine Grady, who heads human-subject research in the department of clinical bioethics at the NIH. "But the data we put together show that the outcome is better than what people have been quoting in the past."

The finding is very interesting, but already it has become a PR campaign for at least some clinical researchers who have to sell risky Phase I studies to subjects. The mantra is emerging: "see, we told you that you might benefit!"