2024-03-20 17:37:01
An unusual action by the RKI is leading to discussions: the authority is using almost a million euros of tax money as a lure to recruit participants for its study. Why this is a right step.
The RKI previously tested the campaign and found that the special incentive could increase the participation rate by 13 percentage points. For the actual study, it now expects a rate of 35 percent. That would be astonishingly high for such an advertising campaign – and a benefit for science and ultimately for all of us. The more we learn about the health of people in Germany, the better and longer it can possibly be maintained through medicine.
Clinical studies are essential
There are still too many diseases that are increasing in our aging society, but are either incurable or difficult to treat. Cancer, dementia, Parkinson’s, cardiovascular diseases – the list is long and the need for research into new drugs and treatment methods is immense.
But without people taking part in clinical trials, no progress in medicine is conceivable. Today, all treatment decisions are made on the basis of controlled clinical data. Every medicine and every treatment must be thoroughly examined: How effective, tolerable and safe are they? What side effects can occur? How can the patient’s chance of survival be further increased? And how can the level of suffering be reduced?
No time for fake discussions
These are also the questions that should concern us when it comes to health research. And less about whether cash as a study incentive is ethically correct and whether our tax money really has to be wasted on it. These are also used for advertising campaigns with posters or radio and television spots. Such a strategy would probably be even more expensive, time-consuming – and less successful.
But above all, science definitely doesn’t have time for such pseudo-discussions.