ideal: with the trial not completed, we gain less certain knowledge about the effectiveness of the new treatment. Benjamin Freedman has argued that, for this reason, clinicians can ethically continue a trial because they are still effectively in equipoise—they still do not really know that the new therapy is more effective.
"[T]hey don't really know" (really, despite a 50% decrease in mortality?!) -- could this be disingenuous rationalization to keep trials going?
