If you’re concerned about the safety of a clinical trial, while all trials have both risks and benefits, it’s important to remember that potential treatments that reach clinical trials have first gone through preclinical research.
A potential treatment may first be tested in a petri dish, in animal models, or through computer modeling, all before the clinical trial process begins. The FDA designs the clinical trial process to be as safe as possible by demanding a new medication must go through a number of rigorous phases before reaching the phase of being tested on humans.
Even with these standards, it’s still important to understand the risks and the side effects of a new medication. This is why regulatory agencies like the FDA require clinical trials participants be informed, without bias, about the risks. Even still, patients should take every opportunity to ask questions about the new medicine, the side effects, and anything else that seems unclear.
Interested in finding a clinical trial? Clinical trials are available near you for patients who have been diagnosed with Parkinson's within the last three years and have not started medication yet.
Patients must not be taking:
- Mirapex® (pramipexole)
- Azilect® (rasagiline)
- Stalevo (carbidopa, levodopa and entacapone)
- Sinemet (carbidopa and levodopa)
- Symmetrel® (amantadine)
- Requip® (ropinirole)
- Eldepryl® (selegiline)
- Cogentin® (benztropine)
