Clinical Trials of Vaccines and Drugs

Question 1

Why are vaccines and drugs subjected to clinical trials?

Answer 1

They are done on humans to establish if they are safe and effective before they can be licenced for use

Question 2

The design of clinical trials to test vaccines and drugs involve?

Answer 2

Placebo controlled - members of the group are given placebo (same form of treatment but without the active ingredient being tested) which allows a valid comparison to be made

Double blind trial - neither members nor the doctors know whether they are receiving the active ingredient or the placebo to prevent bias interpretation of results

Randomised - all relevant details are entered into the computer and the computer randomly sorts the members into two groups to reduce bias is the distribution of age and gender

Question 3

Why is it important to use a large group size?

Answer 3

This is to reduce experimental error and improve statistical significance (ability to compare between groups for difference)