| Popis: |
To the Editor.— We are in strong agreement with Dr Spiro 1 that full disclosure of financial and professional advantages accruing to the physician if a patient participates in a controlled clinical trial will enhance the patient's freedom to decide. It is not unusual for a patient to make or rationalize his decision to participate in research in the belief that the physician-researcher is acting solely in the patient's best interest. Apart from any financial reward for enrolling patients in a clinical trial, the physician may already be subject to pressures and inducements that can compete with his ethical obligation to afford primacy to the interests of each patient. The investigator's uncompensated decision to enroll a particular patient in a research study may be based not only on a desire to help patients generically through discovering something medically beneficial, whether or not it can help an individual patient-participant, but also |
