Klaus Rose MD MS is a medical doctor who worked in the pharmaceutical industry for 20 years. He was an enthusiast for pharmaceutical studies in children and became global head of paediatric research first at Novartis and then Genentech/Roche before becoming an independent advisor on paediatric studies for drug approval in 2011. Through this work he came to understand that a large proportion of ‘investigations’ in children are not only unnecessary but ethically questionable, and that these problems are masked by a stated intention of ‘helping children’ that is hard to challenge.