Sociology of medical evaluations: Methodological problems and socio-economic context of clinical trials

Abstract

This paper is part of a wider research whose aim is to analyze the process of drug evaluation thru clinical trials. In another place we have shown one part of this research consisting in the analysis of three particular cases of drug evaluation; here, while explaining the interest of our research and show some of the methodological problems of clinical trials, we analyze the socio-economic context of drug evaluation.

As a conclusion of this paper we indicate that the context of drug evaluation is characterised by the existence of such a powerful pharmaceutical industry that conditionate the rest of the agents that participate in the process of implementation and evaluation of clinical trials as well as the publication of their results. Furthermore in this paper we show some of the methodological limitations of clinical trials affecting both its internal and external validities, being these a limit to the conclusions attained with this method of evaluation.