Schilsky covers no new ground in his article. He dutifully showers praise on the cooperative group system, which he describes as a "publicly funded standing infrastructure to conduct cancer clinical trials". He then lists the positives and negatives (though he is clearly sympathetic to the positive claims) of the NCI's plan "to create a network, the National Clinical Trials Network (NCTN), that would comprise the four remaining adult cooperative groups". The author delivers a thoroughly "objective", noncontroversial, and mainstream evaluation. Thus, it is useless.
The LIBERTARIAN BIOETHICS BLOGger's ultimate view of this "special article" is as follows: Sadly, it just doesn't occur to Schilskly (and other statist physicians of his ilk) that a privately funded oncology clinical trials system is possible or justified or ideal.