The introduction of new drugs into the market is frequently prevented

Question

The introduction of new drugs into the market is frequently prevented by a shortage of human subjects for the clinical trials needed to show that the drugs are safe and effective. Since the lives and health of people in future generations may depend on treatments that are currently experimental, practicing physicians are morally in the wrong when, in the absence of any treatment proven to be effective, they fail to encourage suitable patients to volunteer for clinical trials.

Which of the following, if true, casts most doubt on the conclusion of the argument?

(A) Many drugs undergoing clinical trials are intended for the treatment of conditions for which there is currently no effective treatment.

(B) Patients do not share the physician’s professional concern for public health, but everyone has a moral obligation to alleviate suffering when able to do so.

(C) Usually, half the patients in a clinical trial serve as a control group and receive a nonactive drug in place of the drug being tested.

(D) An experimental drug cannot legally be made available to patients unless those patients are subjects in clinical trials of the drug.

(E) Physicians have an overriding moral and legal duty to care for the health and safety of their current patients.

Clinical Trials  
 
   Step 1: Identify the Question

The wording casts doubt on in the question stem indicates that this is a  Weaken the Argument  question.

Step 2: Deconstruct the Argument

Too few human subjs for clinical trials → new drugs can’t go to market

New drugs needed for future gens.

Step 3: Pause and State the Goal

In a Weaken problem, the right answer will make the conclusion less likely to be true. In this argument, the conclusion is that doctors are morally in the wrong if they do not encourage suitable patients to volunteer for clinical trials. This conclusion can be rephrased to state that doctors have a moral obligation to encourage patients to volunteer for trials. The right answer will suggest that this is not the case—that doctors are not morally obligated to encourage patients to volunteer. The right answer will most likely accomplish this by showing that there are negative consequences to encouraging patients to volunteer, and that these might outweigh the moral imperative.

Step 4: Work from Wrong to Right

(A) According to the conclusion, physicians are only morally required to recommend trial participation if there is no other effective treatment. This answer choice suggests that this will be the case for many patients. However, knowing that a doctor might be able to recommend trial participation to many patients doesn’t clarify whether that doctor is morally obligated to do so.

(B) The answer choice states that everyone is morally obligated to alleviate suffering. This actually strengthens the conclusion, since if everyone is obligated to alleviate suffering, doctors should be no exception.

(C) This is a tempting answer choice because it relates to real-world concerns surrounding clinical trials. If a patient receives the control drug, he or she might not receive any benefit from participating in the trial. However, the argument specifically claims that physicians should recommend trial participation because of the benefit to future generations, not because of potential benefit to the trial patients themselves. Even though personal benefit is a concern to the patients, since the argument only deals with benefit for others, information about personal benefit does not affect the conclusion.

(D) This answer choice suggests that enrolling patients in a clinical trial is sometimes the only way for those patients to acquire necessary medication. However, the argument specifically claims that physicians should recommend trial participation because of the benefit to future generations, not because of potential benefit to the trial patients themselves. Even though personal benefit is a concern to the patients, since the argument only deals with benefit for others, information about personal benefit does not affect the conclusion. Even if the conclusion dealt with personal benefit, this answer choice would strengthen it, rather than weakening it, because it would suggest that doctors should encourage their sick patients to enroll in trials.

(E) CORRECT . The argument states that the purpose of clinical trials is to show that the drugs are safe and effective. Thus, if a drug is being tested in a clinical trial, it is not definitively known whether it is safe and/or effective. Taking these drugs, therefore, involves accepting at least some risk to health or safety.

The answer choice states that physicians have an overriding responsibility to care for the health and safety of their current patients. That is, the health and safety of their current patients takes precedence over moral imperatives that only relate to future generations. It follows that a doctor should not necessarily encourage a current patient to participate in a clinical trial solely for the benefit of future patients, since participation might cause some risk to the current patient, and that is more important than the health of future patients.

Argument Evaluation

Situation  A shortage of human subjects for clinical trials needed to show that new drugs are safe and effective often prevents those drugs from being introduced into the market. The lives and health of future generations may depend on treatments that are now experimental.

Reasoning   What would cast doubt on the judgment that doctors are morally obligated to encourage their patients to volunteer for clinical trials?  Note that the argument's conclusion, unlike its premises, is a moral judgment. This judgment could be cast into doubt by a moral principle that would be likely to conflict with it under the conditions described. For example, a principle suggesting that it is sometimes morally unacceptable for doctors to encourage their patients to volunteer for clinical trials would also suggest that they are not morally obligated to encourage their patients to volunteer for clinical trials, since anything morally obligatory must also be morally acceptable.

(A) If anything, this highlights how important it is to ensure that these drugs undergo clinical trials to benefit future generations, so it supports rather than casts doubt on the argument's conclusion.

(B) This suggests that patients are morally obligated to volunteer for clinical trials to help prevent suffering in future generations. If anything, this supports the claim that doctors are morally obligated to encourage their patients to volunteer.

(C) The clinical trial will probably not harm any patients in the control group, yet their participation will benefit future generations. So, if anything, this supports the claim that doctors should encourage their patients to volunteer.

(D) This legal barrier makes it even more essential for the drugs to undergo clinical trials in order to benefit patients, so it supports rather than casts doubt on the argument's conclusion.

(E) Correct . Since the experimental drugs' safety is being tested during the trials, the drugs may prove unsafe for subjects in the trials. If doctors have an overriding moral duty to keep their current patients safe, then it may be morally unacceptable for them to encourage those patients to volunteer for the trials.

Sajjad1994 · Accepted Answer

Explanation

This is how i read

The  Introduction  of new drugs into the market  is frequently prevented  by a  shortage of human subjects  for the clinical  trials  needed to show that the drugs are  safe and effective . Since the lives and health of people in future generations may depend on treatments that are currently experimental, practicing physicians are  morally in the wrong  when, in the absence of any treatment proven to be effective, they  fail to encourage suitable patients  to volunteer for clinical trials.

Which of the following, if true,  casts most doubt  on the conclusion of the argument?

Premises:

New drugs are not being introduced in the market because no trials are being conducted for their effectiveness, these drugs will be used in the future for upcoming generations

Conclusion

Practicing doctors are responsible for the absence of the introduction of new verified medicine as they fail to persuade or encourage people to volunteer for trials of medicine to confirm their authenticity and effectiveness.

Prethinking

The issue with the conclusion is that why doctors are responsible? there may be a lot of other factors that lead people not to volunteer for the trials.

Eliminate Answer choices for the best one.

(A) Many drugs undergoing clinical trials ate intended for the treatment of conditions for which there is currently no effective treatment.  
This information if correct did not lead us to make us sure that why doctors can not persuade people to volunteer -  Eliminate it

(B) Patients do not share the physician’s professional concern for public health, but everyone has a moral obligation to alleviate suffering when able to do so. 
This option gives us a general situation that may be true in the real world but here in GMAT CR we are not concerned with real worlds facts -  Eliminate it.

(C) Usually, half the patients in a clinical trial serve as a control group and receive a nonactive drug in place of the drug being tested.  
This one is a tempting choice, this type of answer choices are half right half wrong -  Eliminate It

(D) An experimental drug cannot legally be made available to patients unless those patients are subjects in clinical trials of the drug.  
This option is trying to trap us in some sort of legal statement but such statement should be proved by the stimulus but in this question, it is not supported so it is wrong -  Eliminate it

(E) Physicians have an  overriding moral and legal duty  to care for the health and safety of their current patients.  
Peoples to whom doctors fail to persuade to volunteer for trials are definitely current patients of the doctors. Doctors have double duties here, their legal duty is they can not make experiments on their patients to check the effectiveness of new Medicines. Their second duty is that they morally cannot force their patients to volunteer for trials. So this option proves that Practicing doctors are not responsible for the absence of introduction of new verified medicine, and this option   Weakens the Conclusion

Always try to Avoid

1. Half right Half wrong answers
2. Answer choices that are true in the real world but not supported by the argument
3. May be true answer choices
4. Extreme words answer choices

Hope it helps

LogicGuru1 · Answer

Answer is E   
 CONCLUSION IS :--> Since lives of   FUTURE PATIENTS   depends on clinical trials therefore doctors are   morally wrong  , when they   don 't  encourage their   CURRENT PATIENTS   to volunteer for clinical trials.
 
  A  Weakener that cast doubt on the CONCLUSION will be :- It's   morally right   for doctors to care about  current patient  and doctors have no obligations towards FUTURE PATIENTS.

What if the clinical trials are dangerous for the current patient and can damage their recovery and health. 
Then the doctor can say- Screw the hypothetical future patients. I have to look after my real current patients.

WHICH OPTIONS IS SAYING SO ------>  OPTION E

E) Physicians have an overriding moral and legal duty to care for the health and safety of their  current patients .

Now if a doctor is morally right he cannot be morally wrong.

This E is the correct weakener.

GMATNinja · Answer

Having patients serve as a control by receiving a nonactive drug does not "defeat the purpose of having them on trial to test a drug." Rather, having patients serve as a control could simply be a normal part of clinical trials. In order for (C) to work, you would have to ASSUME that having half the patients serve as a control group is inefficient or detrimental for some reason. There is nothing in the passage suggesting that this is the case, so (C) must be eliminated.

We are specifically told that "the introduction of new drugs into the market is frequently prevented   by a shortage of human subjects for the clinical trials   needed to show that the drugs are safe and effective." The author's argument is:

More patients are needed. 
 The lives and health of people in future generations may depend on treatments that are currently experimental. 
 Therefore, "practicing physicians are morally in the wrong when, in the absence of any treatment proven to be effective, they fail to encourage suitable patients to volunteer for clinical trials."

But if we are still testing a drug to see if it is safe and effective, then we clearly do not know whether that drug is currently safe. So any patient participating in the trials runs the risk of taking drugs that are not safe. If a physician encourages a patient to participate in the trial, then the physician is encouraging the patient to do something that  might  be unsafe.

If "physicians have an overriding moral and legal duty to care for the health and safety of their current patients," then they should  not  encourage their patients to do something that might be unsafe. Thus, (E) is the best answer.

KarishmaB · Answer

The introduction of new drugs into the market is frequently prevented by a shortage of human subjects for the clinical trials needed to show that the drugs are safe and effective. 
Lives and health of people in future generations may depend on these new drugs

Conclusion  : Practicing physicians are morally in the wrong when, in the absence of any treatment proven to be effective, they fail to encourage suitable patients to volunteer for clinical trials.

The argument says that new drugs do not find enough human subjects for effectiveness and safety tests. This puts future generations at risk. So doctors should encourage suitable patients to volunteer for clinical trials. Here is the problem - these new drugs need to be tested for safety. When doctors encourage their patients to volunteer for trials, they are putting their patients at risk. For new drugs, it is not known whether their benefits outweigh risks or risks outweigh benefits. Since their safety has not been established, the patients are at risk. The point is - would you risk current generation for the benefit of future generation?

Let's look at the options to find which one weakens the argument.

(A) Many drugs undergoing clinical trials are intended for the treatment of conditions for which there is currently no effective treatment.

If anything, this helps our argument. These new drugs are needed since currently there is no effective treatment for these conditions.

(B) Patients do not share the physician’s professional concern for public health, but everyone has a moral obligation to alleviate suffering when able to do so.

Again, this preaches to the current patients to undergo new drug trials.

(C) Usually, half the patients in a clinical trial serve as a control group and receive a nonactive drug in place of the drug being tested.

Irrelevant how the actual trials take place. Half the patients are still put at risk.

(D) An experimental drug cannot legally be made available to patients unless those patients are subjects in clinical trials of the drug.

If anything, it helps our argument that patients should undergo clinical trials if they want the new drugs. They cannot obtain the new drugs without undergoing clinical trials.

(E) Physicians have an overriding moral and legal duty to care for the health and safety of their current patients.

Correct. This weakens our argument that physicians should encourage their patients to undergo drug trials. Physicians have a duty to care for current patients so they cannot put their current patients health at risk but encouraging them to try untested drugs.

Answer (E)

gmatexam439 · Answer

The introduction of new drugs into the market is frequently prevented by a shortage of human subjects for the clinical trials 
needed to show that the drugs are safe and effective. Since the lives and health of people in future generations may depend 
on treatments that are currently experimental, practicing physicians are morally in the wrong when, in the absence of any
treatment proven to be effective, they fail to encourage suitable patients to volunteer for clinical trials.

Which of the following, if true, casts most doubt on the conclusion of the argument?

A) Many drugs undergoing clinical trials are intended for the treatment of conditions for which there is currently no effective treatment. -- Drugs undergoing trials are out of scope 
B) Patients do not share the physician’s professional concern for public health, but everyone has a moral obligation to alleviate suffering
when able to do so. -- Patient's obligation is out of scope 
C) Usually, half the patients in a clinical trial serve as a control group and receive a nonactive drug in place of the drug being tested. -- Out of scope 
D) An experimental drug cannot legally be made available to patients unless those patients are subjects in clinical trials of the drug. -- Those subjects is wrong. Moreover, this is the premise of the argument 
E) Physicians have an overriding moral and legal duty to care for the health and safety of their current patients. - Correct. Current obligation is greater than future obligation

charlotte345 · Answer

Hi Experts - For this question (https://gmatclub.com/forum/the-introduc ... 20355.html), my pre-thinking was that there must be a shortage of patients who can or are encouraged to volunteer. So when I looked at option C - I assumed that the situation is that although there are patients who are volunteering but half of them have been receiving a nonactive drug - which defeats the purpose of having them on trial to test a drug - and thus went with this option. Can you please explain where am I going wrong in my thinking. Thanks a lot in advance!

kornn · Answer

Dear  AjiteshArun   VeritasKarishma ,

To arrive at choice E., do I have to assume that  the risks from clinical trials  outweigh  the potential HEALTH benefits ?

The participation in the trial could benefit current patients as well. Hence, all the more reasons to encourage current patients to participate. Thus, choice E. could also strengthen the argument!

Thank you in advance!

AjiteshArun · Answer

Hi  varotkorn ,

First, we should look at a basic assumption that you might have made here: when you look at this argument, do you get the impression that physicians  never  encourage "current" patients to volunteer for clinical trials?

Look at the conclusion again:
 practicing physicians are morally in the wrong  when , in the absence of any treatment proven to be effective, they fail to encourage suitable patients to volunteer for clinical trials

This statement does  not  say that physicians never encourage "current" patients to volunteer for clinical trials. Instead, the impression that we get is that  whenever , and this could mean in 10% of all cases or in 90% of all cases, a physician fails to encourage a patient to volunteer for clinical trials, he or she is morally in the wrong. Here is a slightly more direct, but less precise way of looking at this: if , "in the absence of any treatment proven to be effective", physicians encourage x% of all patients who cannot be helped by any currently available medicine to sign up for clinical trials, the argument wants that x% to go to 100%.

The correct option points out that physicians have "an  overriding  moral and legal duty to care for the health and safety of their current patients". This weakens the conclusion that it is  always  morally incorrect for physicians to not encourage current patients to volunteer for clinical trials.

CrackverbalGMAT · Answer

Hi Dablu,

Are you clear on why E is the best option here?

When physicians are ethically/morally responsible to care for their patients, they are morally required  not to encourage  patients to participate in clinical trials that are unsafe. Due to this reasoning, Option E casts doubt on the conclusion that physicians are morally in the wrong when…

When you examine Option D, you realise that it’s simply stating the legality of clinical trials. It does not cast doubt on the conclusion that involves ‘physicians’.
Correct?

Option D might point to why there is a shortage of human subjects. But it does not provide sufficient explanation (or doubt in this case) as to why the physicians might be in a moral double bind.

Hope this helps!

shanks2020 · Answer

Hi GMATNInja,

The passage states "in the absence of effective treatment". Then even if he does not encourage his patients for trails, the correct medicines are also not safe or at least ineffective, per the passage. Then how can option E be correct by starting the not encouraging patients the doctors are suggesting safer methods to patients?

GMATNinja · Answer

Let's say that the patient has warts on his foot. This is not a pleasant experience, but is usually not a very dangerous condition.

Maybe there are no treatments that have been "proven to be effective" against these kinds of warts. Does the doctor have a moral obligation to encourage this patient to volunteer for a clinical trial, in order to improve the lives of  future generations?

If the doctor's "overriding moral and legal duty" is to care for the  current  patient, then perhaps not. Maybe the patient isn't that bothered by the foot warts, and doesn't want to risk any potentially dangerous side effects that could be WORSE than "ineffective."

The same could be true in other situations. Maybe a patient has an aggressive terminal illness with no effective treatment. Sure, there's a chance that an experimental treatment would help future generations, or would maybe even help the current patient. But there's also the chance that the experimental treatment does harm to the current patient and robs him of his remaining time with his family.

Because these new treatments are experimental, we can't infer that they are "safer" than the current ineffective treatments. (E) is the correct answer.

I hope that helps!

davidbeckham · Answer

Can someone please explain the logic behind D being incorrect?

GMATNinja · Answer

Here's a breakdown of the passage, which is borrowed from our  previous post:

We are specifically told that "the introduction of new drugs into the market is frequently prevented by a shortage of human subjects for the clinical trials needed to show that the drugs are safe and effective." The author's argument is:

More patients are needed. 
 The lives and health of people in future generations may depend on treatments that are currently experimental. 
 Therefore,  "practicing physicians are morally in the wrong when, in the absence of any treatment proven to be effective, they fail to encourage suitable patients to volunteer for clinical trials."

We're asked which of the answer choices casts most doubt on the conclusion of the argument -- that's the bit quoted above.

(D) tells us:
 
This doesn't add much new information to what we can see in the passage -- the passage implies that experimental drugs are unavailable to patients outside clinical trials and (D) gives us the reason for that. It's  illegal  for these drugs to be made available unless the patient is in a clinical trial.

This doesn't undermine the argument that:

"practicing physicians are  morally in the wrong  when, in the absence of any treatment proven to be effective, they fail to encourage suitable patients to volunteer for clinical trials."

(D) confirms the reason why experimental drugs are unavailable to patients outside clinical trials. It does not cast doubt on the  morality  of encouraging patients to volunteer for clinical trials. This is why (D) is not the right answer.

The post linked above also has an explanation of why (E) is the right answer if you want to take a look at that.

I hope that helps!

davidbeckham · Answer

Thanks,  GMATNinja  for the explanation. I am sorry but I am still a bit lost. The conclusion is that  practicing physicians are morally in the wrong when, in the absence of any treatment proven to be effective, they fail to encourage suitable patients to volunteer for clinical trials  and we have to undermine this conclusion. Option D says that these drugs cannot legally be made available to patients. I am confused as to why practicing physicians will be morally wrong to not do something which legally cannot be done?

GMATNinja · Answer

To try and help your confusion, let's be very clear about what (D) says:
 
This does  not  say the drugs cannot legally be made available to patients. It says the patients need to be subjects in clinical trials before it is legal to give them these drugs.

If we compare this to the part of the passage quoted:

"practicing physicians are morally in the wrong when, in the absence of any treatment proven to be effective, they fail to encourage suitable patients to volunteer for clinical trials."

Here, we're not told about the physicians  giving  the drugs to the patients -- we're told physicians are morally in the wrong if they do not  "encourage suitable patients to  volunteer  for clinical trials."

So, if a patient volunteers for a clinical trial, then they can be given the drug legally. The physicians will not be doing something illegal and, therefore, there is no conflict between the legality and morality of their actions.

However, as explained in  this post , (D) does not cast doubt on the  morality  of encouraging patients to volunteer for clinical trials, so (D) cannot be the correct answer to this question.

This post  discusses the reasons why (E) is the best answer.

I hope that helps!

CEdward · Answer

Why isn't the answer B? In my opinion it's perfectly a valid answer.

It takes two to tangle. Physicians might be doing all they could be to encourage people to join the trial, but if there is no motivation on the part of the patients to join, then we end up with a situation where the trial is undermanned.

GMATNinja ?

GMATNinja · Answer

From our  previous post , remember the conclusion of the passage: “practicing physicians are morally in the wrong  when , in the absence of any treatment proven to be effective, they fail to ENCOURAGE suitable patients to volunteer for clinical trials.”

The question asks that we find for an answer choice that, if true, casts doubt on the conclusion of the argument. With that in mind, here’s (B):

(B) introduces two pieces of information. First, patients do not share the physician’s  professional  concern for public health. But this is obvious. Of course patients don’t share the physician’s  professional  concern because they aren’t physicians. But even then, the argument’s conclusion was not that physicians are to blame when trials lack human subjects.

Also, it wasn’t that the physicians need to convert more patients to volunteers. Instead, the conclusion is that physicians are morally wrong WHEN they fail to  encourage  participation in trials. So, whether patients actually decide that they want to participate in the trial is up to them. The physician is only morally obligated to  encourage , not necessarily  increase , participation in clinical trials.

The other issue with (B) is the second part of the information given. It says that EVERYONE has an obligation to alleviate suffering when possible. So, (B) really doesn’t say that patients aren’t willing to participate in clinical trials. Rather, it says that, while patients don’t have a PROFESSIONAL concern, they are MORALLY obligated to help alleviate suffering, presumably by participating in trials.

So when (B) introduces the moral obligation to alleviate suffering, it gives additional reason that physicians would be morally wrong to not encourage participation in clinical trials, and it gives reason that patients should participate in those trials too. Therefore, (B) does not cast doubt on the author’s conclusion, and we can eliminate it.

I hope that helps!

Dinesh654 · Answer

hello experts,

I am still confused with B (I chose B)
first, practicing physicians are morally in the wrong - i think the author wants to say that the physicians are doing wrong morally because they are not encouraging suitable patient. this is what I understood from the argument.

B says (other half, first one is about patients seems irrelevent)- EVERYONE has an obligation to alleviate suffering when possible. physicians also come under "everyone".
so may be their patients are suffering and the physicians want to alleviate the suffering,so they are not encouraging them.
hence they are not morally wrong. they want to ellivate suffering. looks like a weakner.

why its wrong? did I misunderstood it? morally wrong and morally obligated are same? I am so confused!!

I am doing bad in weakening types in general, what should I do?

GMATNinja · Answer

Let's start by nailing down the author's conclusion in his or her exact words: "practicing physicians are morally in the wrong when, in the absence of any treatment proven to be effective, they fail to encourage suitable patients to volunteer for clinical trials."

Now that we've done that, here's (B) again:

As you say, "everyone" includes doctors. So IF doctors are not encouraging suitable patients to volunteer because they want to prevent suffering, this would cast doubt on the conclusion.

But keep in mind that we have no reason to think that doctors are not encouraging suitable patients to volunteer in order to alleviate suffering. In fact, we have no idea why doctors are not encouraging suitable patients to volunteer. Maybe it's because the doctors are lazy? Maybe it's because they don't know about the clinical trials?

Bottom line: there could be many reasons why physicians are not encouraging suitable patients to volunteer. Since the passage doesn't tell us, however, we definitely can't assume it's in order to alleviate suffering. And because we can't make that assumption, (B) does not cast doubt on the argument.

If you're curious about our approach CR in general, feel free to check out our beginners guide to CR  here .

I hope that helps!

The introduction of new drugs into the market is frequently prevented

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The introduction of new drugs into the market is frequently prevented

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