The introduction of new drugs into the market is frequently prevented by a shortage of human subjects for the clinical...
GMAT Critical Reasoning : (CR) Questions
The introduction of new drugs into the market is frequently prevented by a shortage of human subjects for the clinical trials needed to show that the drugs are safe and effective. Since the lives and health of people in future generations may depend on treatments that are currently experimental, practicing physicians are morally in the wrong when, in the absence of any treatment proven to be effective, they fail to encourage suitable patients to volunteer for clinical trials.
Which of the following, if true, casts most doubt on the conclusion of the argument?
Passage Analysis:
Text from Passage Analysis The introduction of new drugs into the market is frequently prevented by a shortage of human subjects for the clinical trials needed to show that the drugs are safe and effective.
- What it says: New drugs often can't reach the market because there aren't enough people volunteering for clinical trials
- What it does: Sets up the main problem - we need more trial volunteers
- What it is: Author's premise about a current healthcare challenge
Since the lives and health of people in future generations may depend on treatments that are currently experimental, practicing physicians are morally in the wrong when, in the absence of any treatment proven to be effective, they fail to encourage suitable patients to volunteer for clinical trials.
- What it says: Doctors should morally push patients to join trials when no proven treatment exists, because future people's lives depend on these experimental treatments
- What it does: Jumps from the volunteer shortage problem to a moral judgment about what doctors should do
- What it is: Author's main conclusion with moral reasoning
- Visualization: Doctor sees Patient X with no proven treatment options → Doctor should encourage Patient X to join Trial Y → Future people benefit from Trial Y results
Argument Flow:
The argument starts by identifying a real problem - not enough clinical trial volunteers are slowing down new drug development. Then it makes a big logical jump to conclude that doctors are morally wrong if they don't push patients into trials when no proven treatments exist.
Main Conclusion:
Practicing physicians are morally wrong when they fail to encourage suitable patients to volunteer for clinical trials (when no proven effective treatment exists).
Logical Structure:
The author connects the volunteer shortage problem to a moral obligation for doctors. The logic is: since future generations need these experimental treatments to become proven treatments, and since trials need volunteers, doctors must encourage participation. However, this jumps from 'we need volunteers' to 'doctors are morally obligated to recruit them' without considering other factors.
Prethinking:
Question type:
Weaken - We need to find information that would reduce our belief in the conclusion that doctors are morally wrong when they fail to encourage suitable patients to volunteer for clinical trials
Precision of Claims
The conclusion makes a moral judgment about what doctors should do in specific circumstances - when there's no proven effective treatment available, doctors should encourage suitable patients to join clinical trials because future generations depend on these experimental treatments
Strategy
To weaken this moral conclusion, we need to find scenarios that show either:
- encouraging patients to join trials might actually harm them or be unethical
- there are valid reasons why doctors shouldn't encourage trial participation
- the benefit to future generations doesn't justify the moral obligation placed on doctors
We can't question the facts that there's a shortage of trial volunteers or that future treatments depend on current experiments, but we can question whether the moral conclusion follows from these facts
This choice actually supports the argument rather than weakening it. If many drugs in trials are for conditions with no current effective treatment, this reinforces the author's point that doctors should encourage patients to join trials since there are no proven alternatives. This makes the moral obligation even stronger, not weaker.
While this mentions everyone has a moral obligation to alleviate suffering, it doesn't directly challenge the conclusion about what doctors specifically should do. The fact that patients don't share physicians' professional concerns doesn't necessarily mean doctors are wrong to encourage trial participation. This doesn't create a strong enough conflict with the main conclusion.
The fact that half the patients receive a placebo doesn't necessarily weaken the argument. The author's reasoning could still hold - even if some patients get placebos, the trials are still necessary for future generations, and doctors could still have a moral obligation to encourage participation. This is more of a neutral fact about how trials work.
This actually strengthens the argument by showing that clinical trials are the only legal way for patients to access experimental drugs. This gives doctors even more reason to encourage trial participation since it's the only path to potentially beneficial experimental treatments.
This directly conflicts with the argument's conclusion by establishing a competing moral priority. If doctors have an 'overriding' duty to their current patients' health and safety, this could trump the obligation to encourage trial participation. Clinical trials involve unknown risks and uncertain benefits, so encouraging participation might conflict with prioritizing current patient safety. This creates a strong reason why doctors might not be morally wrong for failing to encourage trial participation.