Who participates in clinical trials?

• A. Healthy volunteers and patients
• B. Animals
• C. Doctors only
• D. Pharmacists

Answer: (A)

Clinical trials test new medicines or treatments in humans to determine safety and effectiveness. The people who participate are human volunteers: some are healthy individuals who don’t have the disease to learn how the body tolerates the treatment and what side effects might occur, while others are patients who have the condition being studied to assess whether the treatment helps them. Animals are used in earlier, preclinical testing to gather initial safety data, but they are not part of clinical trials in people. Doctors and pharmacists are the researchers and clinical staff running the study, not participants themselves. So the participants come from healthy volunteers and patients.