Etrials cost-cutting slows first-quarter losses – News & Observer – Raleigh, NC, USA - Etrials, whose software is used in clinical trials conducted with experimental drugs, reported a first-quarter loss of $964178, or 9 cents a share … See all stories on this topic

Drug Trials: Extra Income Or Health Risk? – kypost.com – Covington, KY, USA - Clinical trials of experimental trials can be profitable as well. Some argue it isn’t worth putting your personal health at risk … See all stories on this topic

Aspirin and Secondary Prevention in Peripheral Artery Disease – Journal of American Medical Association (subscription) – Chicago, IL, USA – In this issue of JAMA, Berger et al 6 report results of a meta-analysis of 18 randomized controlled clinical trials assessing the effect of aspirin … See all stories on this topic

Participants in antidepressant drug trials are atypical patients … EurekAlert (press release) – Washington, DC, USA – Dr. Trivedi said researchers should design future trials in real clinical practice settings where patients have co-morbidities, as he is doing in his … See all stories on this topic

PR Web (press release) Smart Phone, ePRO, and eDiary Technology Advances for Clinical … PR Web (press release) – Ferndale, WA, USA – assisTek, the leader in innovative electronic patient reported outcomes (ePRO) solutions and data collection for clinical trials has continued its … See all stories on this topic

DiaKine Therapeutics Diabetes Immune Modulator Drug Set for Human … Business Wire (press release) – San Francisco, CA, USA – It is also the first clinical trial where Lisofylline (LSF) will be given to subjects under the skin (subcutaneously) using a convenient, ambulatory pump … See all stories on this topic

Etrials spends less, loses less in1Q – Bizjournals.com – Charlotte, NC, USA – ETrials (Nasdaq: ETWC) develops and sells software that allows drug companies and contract research organizations to collect data from clinical trials in … See all stories on this topic

Geisinger studying rural cancer – Danville News – Danville, PA, USA – More than 100 clinical trials focused on cancer in adults and children are being conducted that are accessible to residents throughout its 43-county service … See all stories on this topic

Russia: Clinical Trials Numbers up by 9% in 2008 – PRLog.Org (press release) – TX, USA – “Clinical Trials Market in Russia,” available at http://tinyurl.com/r5bmxv reports that the growth of the Russian clinical trials market has been especially … See all stories on this topic

How do I know this? I subscribe to a free weekly news alert through Google that flags and sends stories about clinical trials to my e-mail. (If you’re interested in clinical trials, or in anything from East Aleutian boxing to dandelion sculpture, I suggest you go to Google and sign up for an alert. It’s extremely cool.) In previous weeks there were a few stories mentioning that people are turning to trials as a treatment option. The stories piqued my interest because two years ago I interviewed a bioethicist named Paul Appelbaum who coined the term “therapeutic misconception” to describe how subjects and researchers have come to consider clinical trials a valid medical treatment option. It’s a misconception because clinical trials are not treatment. They are research. It looked to me that the economic downturn was putting therapeutic misconception on the fast track to being regarded as the absolute truth.

Then, this week two stories came across my Google alert that went a long way to confirming my suspicions. The first is a story from the NBC station in Dallas-Fort Worth Texas that flat out says, “Clinical Trials Provide Options for Financially Strapped Patients.” The other is a story about how the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha recently opened an office to assist people who are increasingly coming to the university to enroll in clinical trials. The reason more people are showing interest in becoming subjects, the story says, is because unemployment is at a 15-year high.

Allowing medical research to become even more entwined with being regarded as treatment is bad for subjects, bad for patients, bad for medicine, and, ultimately disastrous for medical research. Keep your eye out to see if the trend grows.