What the Doctor Didn't Say

Opens a window onto the hidden world of clinical research trials. This book advises those who are considering participation in such a trial how these trials actually work, and how they are fundamentally exploitative of the patients' rights.

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Most people know precious little about the risks and benefits of participating in a "clinical trial" - a medical research study involving some innovative treatment for a medical problem. Yet millions of people each year participate anyway. What the Doctor Didn't Say explains the reality: that our current system intentionally hides much of the information people need to make the right choice about whether to participate. Witness the following scenarios:

-Hundreds of patients with colon cancer undergo a new form of keyhole surgery at leading cancer centers - never being told that 85% of colorectal surgeons, worried that it increases the risk of the cancer returning, would not themselves undergo that procedure

-Tens of thousands of women at high risk of developing breast cancer are asked to participate in a major research study. They are told about the option of having both breasts surgically removed - but not told about the option of taking a standard osteoporosis pill that might cut the risk of getting breast cancer by one half or more

What the Doctor Didn't Say, written by two prominent experts in the field, is the first book to reveal the secrets that many in the research establishment have fought long and hard to keep from patients. It shows why options not commonly known - including getting a new treatment outside of a research study - can often be the best choice. It explains how patients can make good decisions even if there is only limited information about a treatment's effect. And it does this through the eye-opening of what is happening daily to thousands of people.

Day after day, we are learning how little we know about what really works. Headlines regularly announce that a previously unquestioned treatment - hormane replacement therapy, drugs such as Vioxx or Celebrex - may now be much riskier than we thought. The latest in a surge of recent books criticising the medical establishment (but the first to look at clinical trials specifically), What the Doctor Didn't Tell You helps to empower patients to survive in a world of medical uncertainty, and makes positive recommendations for systemic reform.