Experimental medicine tablets could be given to people suffering from a specific ailment. The tablet bottle would have a serial number and the recipient would not know what kind of medicine it was in the tablet or if the tablet was simply a placebo. In return, the recipient would enter their tablet bottle serial number and the symptoms they experienced on a web site. Since the recipients are doing most of the work and collecting the information is automatic, a large trial could be conducted at a low cost.

A problem with this is that a recipient could be given a medicine that they are allergic to or for which the side effects are too severe. Because of this, this trial should only be used to test medicines which are known to be safe; even if they have a low medicinal value. Also, recipients could enter their known allergies on the site to see if their specific tablet bottle contains those ingredients. Common foods could be crushed and put in tablets to test their medicinal properties. Typical foods would have low medicinal value; but, are known to be safe and because large trials can be conducted with this method, that low medicinal value could be detected.

In general, this method would be best suited for ailments which when untreated are not lethal or too injurious, like the common cold for example. Also, the ailment should have symptoms that are easy to self diagnose.
 
 

Feedback   Free Electronic Nation Home    Invention   GNU Free Documentation License