Comment Re:But not in the US (Score 4, Insightful) 229
In fact, it is UNETHICAL to use a placebo control in any clinical trial of an investigational product for which the existing standard of care already includes a product on the market.
In plain English, it is entirely unethical to give participants a placebo to test the efficacy of a new flu vaccine when we already have existing vaccines on the market. Doing so denies participants in the study from accessing effective treatment. If you have to test against a placebo, it will be impossible to recruit participants, because nobody will take the chance to receive placebo when they could just go to the pharmacy and get vaccinated.
There are only two possible explanations for such a position: either gross ignorance of basic scientific and ethical principles for conducting medical research in humans, or deliberate malicious intent to stop all research of investigational drugs. It doesn't actually matter which one is the reason. Both are entirely unacceptable.
The fact that a huge segment of the American population does not understand even the most basic scientific principles is the reason why many people will die needlessly.