Twenty-five years ago this month, the New England Journal of
Medicine published a special report on something that’s become
medical gospel: That’s right. Not as in “take two and call me in
the morning,” but in the realm of the randomized double-blinded
placebo-controlled trial. Or what we generally consider the gold
standard of evidence in medical research. If you’ve often heard
that bit of jargon but always wondered why it’s so exalted,
break it down: - randomized: the assignment of the treatment
(aspirin) or placebo (‘inert’ sugar pill) is not given in any
planned sequence. - double-blinded: neither the researchers nor
the subjects know who is taking what (everything is coded so
that analysts can find out at the end). - placebo-controlled:
the study compares the treatment against placebo to see if it’s
helpful or harmful. Even though acetylsalicylic acid’s
properties as a pain reliever and fever reducer had been known
in the time of Hippocrates, it was in 1899 that Bayer first
patented and marketed what cam