Whether it be about freedom of choice or some other ethical issue, I can understand when conducting clinical trial on a medical device. From what I know of the engineers trend of thought, the idea is always to bring about improvement to the health of the human being; it is always to determine the efficacy of the device when used on the human being; i.e., its ability to generate the desired results without causing any harm to the individual it is being tested on.

But when the clinical trial has to do with a pharmaceutical drug, the whole idea behind conducting the test comes into serious questioning.

We are fully aware that the most a pharmaceutical drug will do for someone is, may be, give them some relief; i.e., if that is acceptable. The whole idea behind going to visit a medical doctor – if they may be called that – is to obtain some cure of a disease after seeing the physician. But if relief is all they can get while the physicians makes lots of money by billing the patient’s insurance company for a visit while the pharmaceutical industry makes more money out the sale of drugs to the patient who only received relief, then the moral behind the clinical testing of pharmaceutical drugs comes under questioning. Remember, the patient has to see the ‘so-called’ my doctor for more of the pharmaceutical drugs and then the vicious cycle – of billing the insurance company while the pharmacy makes more money out of drug sales without the patient deriving some cure from the drugs – repeats itself.

It is a mystery that such a process is even allowed to exist in a society; and we the engineers seem to allow its existence.

Question is: Should clinical testing be carried out on pharmaceutical drugs as well if all they will give is relief, if at all? What is clinical trials on pharmaceutical drugs all about? That should be the larger question and that is the ethical issue that should be looked into.