Franklin’s Forgotten Triumph: Scientific Testing PDF
“Millions of asthmatics and hay fever sufferers could be spared the misery of severe attacks by a new vaccine,” the newspaper story begins. “Clinical trials suggest new cancer drug may save thousands of lives,” the television news anchor intones. “Children who received the medication developed long-lasting resistance to measles compared to those who received a placebo,” the brochure in a pediatrician’s office reads.
In a thousand ways our lives are influenced by what is known as the blind protocol. Its basic elements are simple to understand. Take a group of people. Randomly assign them to one of two populations. One receives the real medicine, while the other gets a sugar pill, or sham treatment, known as a placebo, with both researchers and patients blind to which is which. Every pill we take, every nasal spray or medical patch we use, has been subjected to the judgment of the blind protocol. It is the entry price demanded by the Food and Drug Administration before the gates to the American drug market will open.
Doing science this way is important because what a researcher wants or expects can influence what they observe, or how they interpret what their data is saying. If no one knows which is which until the data collection and analysis are completed, then the potential for bias is eliminated. This is why the blind protocol has become the gold standard of the life sciences. But where did the idea begin? Even scientists are surprised to learn that this critical tool of modern research was created by the extraordinary Benjamin Franklin.
Publication History: October 2004 AMERICAN HERITAGE
