Equipoise

Equipoise (pronounced ee-kwuh-poiz or ek-wuh-poiz)

(1) An equal distribution of weight; even balance; equilibrium; The relation of two weights or forces which balance each other; equilibrium; equiponderance.

(2) An alternative name for a counterpoise in certain contexts, now rarely seen outside of literary and poetic use.

(3) In medical research, as clinical equipoise, or the principle of equipoise, a term to describe certain aspects of the ethical basis for clinical trials.

(4) In commercial pharmacy, the trademark for Hydroxyzine, an antihistamine and Boldenone Undecylenate, an anabolic steroid, once prescribed for human use, now restricted to veterinary applications, mostly equine.

(5) Of or pertaining to equilibrioception, the state of being balanced or in equilibrium.

1625–1635: An English coining which borrowed from both Latin and French, following the mid sixteenth century phrase "equal poise", the construct being equi + poise.  The prefix equi (which existed also as equ if preceding a vowel), was a word-forming element meaning "equal” from the Latin aequi, a combining form of aequus (equal, even).  Poise was from the Anglo-Norman poise (measure of weight), from the Anglo-Norman pois, from the Middle French pois (weight).

Clinical Equipoise

The term clinical equipoise, (also known within the medical research community as the principle of equipoise), was used first in 1987 by Benjamin Freedman (1951-1997), professor of medicine in the Biomedical Ethics Unit at McGill University, Montreal.  It provides a construct for the ethical framework of medical research involving the assignment of patients to different treatment streams in clinical trials.  An ethical dilemma exists in clinical trials if a researcher has cause to believe the treatment in one stream of a trial is significantly out-performing others.  Although it’s something of a deliberate scientific fiction, trials should be designed on the basis of a null hypothesis; that there should exist no evidence beyond the indicative that the intervention being trialed will result in better results than existing treatments or no treatment at all.  As a trial proceeds, findings may provide sufficient evidence to convince the investigator of the intervention’s efficacy and once a certain threshold of evidence is reached, uncertainty no longer exists, thereby creating an ethical imperative for the investigator to provide the superior intervention to all participants.  Being a thing applied to clinical work, it’s therefore not an abstract theory but, given the size, duration and complexity of many trials, it can be difficult to define exactly, or even vaguely, when the threshold has been reached.

Equipoise is one of the brand-names used for boldenone undecylenate (also as boldenone undecenoate.  It is an androgen and anabolic steroid (AAS) medication intended for use in in veterinary medicine (predominately equine) but in the 1970s it began to be used by humans, usually to enhance physical characteristics.  It remains available for veterinary use where it highly regarded but in most markets it's a controlled drug and use by humans is via the illicit market.