The Surfactant Trial Essay

Submitted By Katerinabojovic1
Words: 406
Pages: 2

The Surfactant Trial In a perfect world, big business would not dictate the causes of life or death. Without any intervention, natural selection on the other hand ultimately determines whether or not a life should go on. Pharmaceutical companies seek to decrease the occurrences of death through research and development of new drugs. What the pharmaceutical companies do to test these new drugs will always be up for debate. The other issue presented here is the question of whether or not it is ethical for a drug company to conduct drug trials when there is already a working product on the market. It is my belief that testing is necessary when there is no known cure available. It should however always be at the option of the candidates to be part of these drug studies and it is appropriate as long as they are being fully informed of the risks involved. I find it difficult to swallow the idea that although beneficial to some of the participants in these drug trials there are those who will receive placebo. This is basically a lottery to see who will live and who will die just so a competitor can cut into their rival drug company’s market. The company argues that “they can ethically conduct a three arm trial: (1) placebo, (2) the competitor’s surfactant, and (3) their own surfactant.” That it would be both “time efficient” and provide data “the FDA likes”. Since they cannot guarantee that their surfactant will be a success they are inaccurate in saying that they will have a two third chance of receiving treatment. In