title: Ethical and Scientific Perspectives of Placebo-controlled Trials in Schizophrenia.
abstract: Clinical trials for development of new medications are essential in all fields of medicine. The requirement for a placebo arm in pharmaceutical trials presents ethical and clinical dilemmas that are especially complicated with regard to mentally ill persons whose free choice and ability to provide informed consent may be questionable. On the other hand, we do not believe that this predicament justifies unconditional rejection of placebo use in psychiatry, when the investigational drug may ultimately provide substantial benefit for some patients. At the same time it is the psychiatrist's responsibility to insure that investigators are adequately trained to conduct clinical trials and that stringent regulatory committees supervise the scientific, clinical and ethical aspects of the trials.
  
  
  BACKGROUND
  Placebo-control; Schizophrenia; Medical ethics; Clinical trials.
authors.affiliation: Lev-Hasharon Mental Health Center, Netanya, Israel, affiliated to the Sackler Faculty of Medicine, Tel-Aviv University, Tel-Aviv, Israel.
authors.forename: Yuval
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Melamed
authors.forename: Adiel
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Doron
authors.forename: Orit
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Stein-Reisner
authors.forename: Avi
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Bleich