Crossroads in Clinical Trials

Abstract

If clinical trials are the engine that powers the development of new interventions for neurologic and other diseases, volunteer participants in those trials are the fuel. Yet as attendees at the Advocacy Forum of the 7th Annual Meeting of the American Society for Experimental NeuroTherapeutics (ASENT) heard, the fuel supply is low. “We are facing a national public health crisis. Trust and the incidence of volunteerism in clinical research is declining,” said Ken Getz, founder and chairman of the Center for Information and Study on Clinical Research Participation (CISCRP) and a Research Fellow at the Tufts Center for the Study of Drug Development. “Over the past 25 years, as the volume of clinical research has grown dramatically, we have as a community failed to engage the public and prospective volunteers in the process.”