Bad Pharma?

I  have just finished reading Bad Pharma by Ben Goldacre.  In the book Ben argues that we don’t have the best possible drugs  because of failings of researchers, regulators and the drug companies.  Ben is a doctor and he obviously knows this topic very well.

He shows that many trial results are simply not published, and this means that we don’t know exactly how well drugs do, because bad results are suppressed.   He is very keen to set up a Register of all trials to ensure that all results are published.  He is also critical of the regulators, who he feels are too close to the industry.  He is also complains about the design of trials.   New drugs are compared to old drugs that don’t work very well rather than the best in the field or drugs are tested on young, relatively healthy patients who don’t have the complications you might find with more elderly patients in the real world.

He also argues that the drug companies spend too much money trying to influence doctors to prescribe their drugs.

I found myself agreeing with almost all of Ben’s points.  Apparently so do some of the drugs companies and I was pleased to read that GSK had signed up to making all clinical trial data available within a year of completion of the trial.

Now I have a better understanding of this area I will follow future developments with interest.