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What
can you conclude about Drug X efficacy?
You answered:
 In
the absence of a placebo, one cannot conclude that either
Drug X or morphine are effective analgesics.
INCORRECT
Despite
the absence of a placebo in this case, we can conclude that
Drug X is an effective analgesic. Morphine was used as a
standard analgesic because it was effective in previous
studies in this condition. If Drug X is superior to morphine,
it is almost certainly an effective analgesic as well. The
fundamental principle of all of these cases is that interpretation
of analgesic trials is straightforward if one shows a difference
between at least two of the treatments.
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