Studies bear this out, suggesting that patients often don't understand what they are getting into when they sign up for clinical trials. They often don't realize that there is little chance the experiment will benefit them. A survey of cancer patients at the University of Chicago found that 93 percent said they understood what they were told about the trial in which they were enrolled. Yet only a third were able to explain the main purpose of their trial accurately. It's the job of researchers and institutional review boards to make sure patients understand their studies.
Critics say they often fail to do an adequate job.
She was appalled at how incomprehensible they were. The rules say that they are supposed to be written in plain English, but people just ignore the rules. Meyers was particularly appalled that many of the consent forms she reviewed held out the hope of a cure to terminally ill patients even in trials designed only to test for a safe dose of an experimental drug. In the first phase of drug trials, researchers are testing doses that have never been tested in humans before. So they don't know if the drugs will be effective.