Packer says this is the first placebo-controlled study in acute heart failure to show a clinical benefit.

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This study is actually the first of four placebo-controlled, Phase III trials to be completed.

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Claire Bombardier, the University of Toronto researcher who had conducted Merck's big ulcer study, criticized the new studies for not being placebo-controlled.

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It is a randomized controlled study, meaning that similar patients were assigned at random to either get either Centrum or placebo.

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And in a study published last year, researchers in Australia showed in a double-blind, placebo-controlled trial that subjects with suspected gluten sensitivity had substantially fewer symptoms on a gluten-free diet than control subjects who unknowingly ingested gluten.

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