A. INCORRECT CHOICE
Feedback: Randomized, controlled trials are the gold standard approach to assessing whether a drug is a safe and effective treatment. Such a trial, conducted early on, would have prevented the wasting of time and resources on a drug that was ineffective.
Which choice represents an approach that would have made it even more difficult to determine the effectiveness of drug Z?
B. INCORRECT CHOICE
Feedback: Publication in peer-reviewed journals allows scientists to learn from and build on each others’ findings. By sharing their results—the overwhelming majority of which were negative—the physicians would have facilitated the pursuit of more effective therapeutics and not wasted more time and resources on a drug that did nothing for their patients.
Which choice represents an approach that is counterproductive for assessing the effectiveness of a drug?
C. INCORRECT CHOICE
Feedback: By pooling their results, the physicians would effectively make their sample size larger, allowing a statistical analysis that would have produced a definitive conclusion about drug Z’s lack of effectiveness. Such an approach would definitely have prevented a waste of time and resources.
Which choice represents an approach that would NOT reveal the effectiveness (or ineffectiveness) of drug Z?
D. CORRECT CHOICE
Feedback: Inclusion of a placebo in clinical trials is critical to determine whether a new therapeutic is more effective than doing nothing at all.\
Courtesy of Norton Publishing’s Smartwork assessment platform for Essential Cell Biology, 6th edition.