Experts say that most drugs, whatever the disease, work for only about half the people who take them. Not only is much of the nation’s approximately $300 billion annual drug spending wasted, but countless patients are being exposed unnecessarily to side effects.
This is one reason why I think that the FDA does as much harm as it does good. The broad based statistical studies that it demands before it will approve a drug can only tell you so much. I wonder how many drugs that got turned down because they would not help the majority of people who tried them would have still greatly benefited a small minority.