One reviewer of Testing Treatments rated this little book written for the public as “important, scary and encouraging”.

It’s important because people need to know why treatments must be tested carefully.

It’s scary, because the book provides plenty of examples of how people have suffered and sometimes died because treatments have not been tested rigorously.

And Testing Treatments is encouraging because it shows how everyone can play a part in promoting better research for better health care.

In his Foreword to the book, Ben Goldacre concludes that the tricks of the medical research trade are better explained in Testing Treatments than anywhere else he has encountered. You can listen to Ben reading his Foreword to the book here.

The original English text has been translated into many other languages; and new translations continue to be prepared, emphasizing the enduring relevance of a text first published in 2011.

The texts of the English original and all the translations are available for free download from language-specific websites. Some of the texts are also available as audiobooks, and each of the websites has links to other resources illustrating and reinforcing the lessons in Testing Treatments.

The authors and translators hope you enjoy this important multilingual learning resource, and that you will help to increase the likelihood that you and others will receive treatments that are more likely to do good than harm.