Clinical trials in psychopharmacology: scientific and ethical issues.

1. The ethical and scientific use of medicines for the treatment of illness rests upon proof that the medicines to be used are effective and safe for the condition to be treated. The use of the clinical trial is the method by which such evidence is produced. 2. Recent activities by some to decry clinical trials as unethical and restrict their conduct results in the totally unacceptable situation of withholding potentially valuable treatments from patients or subjecting patients to the unnecessary risks of treatments not proven safe and efficacious. These actions can lead to a new dark age of "chemotherapeutic blood letting and purgatives" under the guise of higher ethical purposes.