Ethical issues of randomized clinical trials.

Randomized clinical trials are an accepted form of experimentation on human subjects to determine the effectiveness of new treatment regimens or drugs. The Declaration of Helsinki, adopted by the World Medical Association, has established guidelines to safeguard humans used as subjects in medical experimentation. The ethical issues of informed consent, the physician-patient relationship and the potential for abuses in research must be considered prior to agreeing to participate in human experimentation.