double-blinded study
double-blinded study
A clinical trial in which neither the patient nor the researcher know which arm—e.g., gold standard therapy, experimental or placebo—of the study the patient has been placed, theoretically preventing patient or researcher bias.A criticism of alternative medicine by mainstream medical practitioners is the former’s inability to reproduce claimed therapeutic results with double-blinded studies, which are the standards by which mainstream therapies are tested and approved by the FDA and other regulatory agencies.