TY - JOUR
AU - Teira, David
AB - Theor Med Bioeth (2012) 33:383–386 DOI 10.1007/s11017-012-9216-2 Catherine Will and Tiago Moreira (eds): Medical proofs, social experiments: Clinical trials in shifting contexts Ashgate, Farnham, Surrey, 2010, 198 pp, Hardcover $99.95, ISBN: 978-0-7546-7928-8 David Teira Published online: 15 March 2012 Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2012 More than half a century ago, physicians began to struggle with how to assess the efficacy of treatments. As the late Harry Marks documented at length, around the 1950s, the two alternatives considered for making these assessments were the case- based judgment of individual experts and the results of randomized clinical trials (RCTs). However, after only a few decades, it is evident that the RCT has reached the apex of the hierarchy of clinical evidence, where it remains despite the objections of a number of dissenting doctors, philosophers, and sociologists. The compilation edited by Catherine Will and Tiago Moreira brings us a selection of the most recent sociological literature on this topic. Clinical histories and sociological case studies differ, of course, in many respects, but it is interesting to note, as the editors themselves present it, that this book constitutes a vindication of case-based reasoning against the purported generality of RCTs. In these latter, we 
TI - Catherine Will and Tiago Moreira (eds): Medical proofs, social experiments: Clinical trials in shifting contexts
JF - Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics
DO - 10.1007/s11017-012-9216-2
DA - 2012-03-15
UR - https://www.deepdyve.com/lp/springer-journals/catherine-will-and-tiago-moreira-eds-medical-proofs-social-experiments-sSovunGTiW
SP - 383
EP - 386
VL - 33
IS - 5
DP - DeepDyve
ER -