Insider says drugs ineffective. This is truly groundshaking. Kinda like when a cigarette exec finally admits smoking causes cancer, but on a more fundamental... [A Simpler Way]
A bit of honesty from Allen Roses, worldwide vice-president of genetics at GlaxoSmithKline:
"The vast majority of drugs - more than 90 per cent - only work in
30 or 50 per cent of the people," Dr Roses said. "I wouldn't say that
most drugs don't work. I would say that most drugs work in 30 to 50 per
cent of people. Drugs out there on the market work, but they don't work
in everybody." [The Independent (payment required)]
Full text (free).
Note that this came from the worldwide vice-president of genetics, not
the worldwide vice-president of marketing. In reality, this is not news
- variability in dose/response curves is completely known and accepted
in all areas of physiology/toxicology/pharmacology. It's just one of
those areas that we don't talk about to avoid rocking the
pharmaceutical boat, particularly in the area of advertising.
The strapline Hitting pain
where it hurts, if you are one of the lucky 40% of people who actually
respond to this drug and for whom the benefits outweigh the
occasionally violent side-effects won't be winning any advertising awards any time soon.
I would be interested to know if the figures cited are adjusted to take
account of the placebo effect. In terms of benefits over a sugar pill,
the real numbers could be even lower.
9:49:40 AM 
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