@stanjupiter - I'm replying here stan because I can't be bothered wrestling with the Hotcopper post button processing on the MSB forum - feel free to cross post my reply to you back there if you wish - this is in reply to your post 69307863.
You in bold - my replies in not bold.
You're saying you know for sure there would have been enough parents willing to forgo the "easier option" and place their child in a clinical trial for "the greater good"?Absolutely is not a word I use loosely - there are few absolutes - but I am very tempted to reply to your question thusly - "ABSO - bloody - LOOTLY". Any parent thinking their child is facing almost certain death would much prefer a chance at saving that childs life than no chance. A fifty fifty chance at the treatment arm is giving every parent of ever child an equal chance at the treatment arm (whatever the treatment arms is).
Parents would have to be given proper informed consent. @stanjupiter - I like you, sincerely, I see in you a fellow borderline depressed person disillusioned at the stupidity of his fellow man on occasion. But I also think you are ignorant of some basic science and biological realities about viruses and vaccines and cell biology generally so that you attribute to your fellow humans bad judgement when in cases of medicine and science they too are ignorant and doing their best in some cases.
Take a look at the first "successful" randomized trial in GvHD Reach2.I have NEVER said to you that I considered REACH to be successful. You are bringing up stuff others have suggested in your discussion with me - don't do that please. It will waste both of our precious time.
Were those patients who ended up randomized to two therapies only a moron would have chosen as BAT given proper informed consent? What on earth did this RCT help anyone with reasonable comprehension skills learn that wasn't obvious from Reach1?I don't know enough about the Reach to have an opinion.
I do know this - doctors do not create cancers (for the most part - chemo and radiation might do that as side effects) - they try to cure them. When GvHD arises as a result of a attempt to cure a patient of cancer (kid or adult) that is not the fault of the doctor -that is an unfortunate accident as a result of a lack of human know-how to avoid that at this point in history - a child that says to a doctor - you gave me this, you fix it - is a child talking like a child and blaming an adult, a doctor, that is also a bit like a child, trying to do the best with the tools at his or her disposal. The doctor did not intend to do the child who gets GvHD harm - he or she intended to try to help the child.
I know that you come to this message board with some well formed long held opinions about vaccines and about other treatments and about inconsistencies in approach - I don't know whether those opinions of yours are well founded or not - I simply don't know, they might be prejudices you carry around for all I know - I can't unpack all your baggage - I can sympathise with your distress at the state of the world though.
By doctors aren't the cause of GVHD. And randomised controlled trials whilst not alway necessary (sometime as knowledge gets greater lab tests may more quickly and efficiently zero in on mechanisms of action) they are in my experience never motivated by anything other than a desire to learn how to treat all those with the disease better in future.
Doctors don't create illness and injustice as a generalisation. They generally try to fix it. Some times they absolutely stuff up. For 2 and a half centuries bleeding patients was standard medical procedure - the docs didn't know any better. They had to learn.
