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Rapid responses are electronic letters to the editor. They enable our users to debate issues raised in articles published on thebmj.com. Although a selection of rapid responses will be included online and in print as readers' letters, their first appearance online means that they are published articles. If you need the url (web address) of an individual response, perhaps for citation purposes, simply click on the response headline and copy the url from the browser window. Letters are indexed in PubMed.
Both Rhiannon Edwards' and Neville W Goodman's concern is already
addressed, albeit too narrowly, in instructions to authors of medical
journals, such as JAMA, which suggest:
'To avoid confusion, the term MASKED is preferred in studies in which
vision loss of patients is an outcome of interest'*
Rhiannon Edwards does not like the word 'blind' applied to clinical
trials, and she is right. She, as a partially sighted person, dislikes the
connotations of 'blind drunk'. I just think 'blind' sounds so awkward, if
not plain ridiculous: 'A blind investigator made the measurements...'
We should change our terminology, and use the word 'mask'. I know
this is entirely subjective, but isn't 'a randomised double-masked trial'
better than 'a randomised double-blind trial'?
Re: Better masked than blind
Both Rhiannon Edwards' and Neville W Goodman's concern is already
addressed, albeit too narrowly, in instructions to authors of medical
journals, such as JAMA, which suggest:
'To avoid confusion, the term MASKED is preferred in studies in which
vision loss of patients is an outcome of interest'*
*http://jama.ama-assn.org/info/auinst_term.html
Competing interests: No competing interests