The Wonder Drug Myth - The Atlantic

Pay no attention to that biochemical process behind the marketing!!! More information that should give our over-medicated culture pause as we are subjected to commercial upon commercial suggesting new blockbuster drugs will cure what ails us.

fewer than 1 in 100 new ideas reaches clinical trials and fewer than 10 percent of these are approved for sale. (From a public safety perspective, this culling of the herd seems like a good thing. Of course, the law of unintended consequences gives way to a desperation of sorts). This high failure rate means that the few drugs that do get through the gauntlet of clinical trials and FDA approval become must-win propositions. A company must pull out all the stops to sell the drug, which means marketing.

[A]re the new drugs really better? The FDA doesn’t require comparative clinical trials, only proof that the drug beats a placebo. So unless somebody were to compare drugs head to head, it’s almost impossible to say. That was the premise behind a landmark study by the name of ALLHAT (short for Antihypertensive and Lipid-Lowering Treatment to Prevent Heart Attack Trial), begun in 1994.

But since these newer drugs had only been compared to placebo when working their way to FDA approval, there was no way to know which treatment was most effective. (So, they may not be better necessarily than existing treatments, the lusters for which have long faded with their patent expirations).

Of course, expectations of what a drug should do (by doctors and patients) may have changed over time. Word is that the old stand-bys of aspirin and Tylenol probably wouldn't have passed muster if they were introduced today. It turns out that both of these family friends are more dangerous than the conventional wisdom would suggest.