An ethical approach for clinical trials during the COVID-19 pandemic
As researchers and physicians race to investigate innovative therapeutics against the novel SARS-CoV-2 virus, unanswered questions remain regarding the ethics and design of clinical trials. Namely, what is the most ethically and scientifically rigorous approach to test unproven novel or repurposed therapeutic agents during a major public health emergency? Canonically, randomized controlled trials (RCTs) have represented the gold standard for evidence-based medicine. In this approach, the efficacy of an intervention …