Hidden Figures in COVID Clinical Trials

In the pursuit of objectivity, many times the subject of a scientific investigation is designed to be interchangeable. If we are running a clinical trial, we do not want our exact choice of patient cohort to significantly influence our results. In the race for COVID treatments, the heroes of the story are researchers doing everything they can to find effective treatments. However, it is important that we also pay respect to the patients, who choose to risk their health to add just a single data point to a clinical trial. Consider one of the clinical trials for Remdesivir, tested against a placebo. It is easy to draw attention to the strikingly low p-values, a testament to well-performed science, and respect the expertise of the heroic researchers. However, what of the patient who took Remdesivir and began experiencing extremity pains, or the other patient who saw changes in their mental status? More severely, what of the 58 COVID patients who experienced respiratory failure after being given a placebo treatment? To participate in a randomized, controlled clinical trial is to take a large risk for the sake of knowledge. In that regard, the patients in these clinical trials are hidden, heroic figures.