| "So if an acne drug causes liver failure it will still get approved as long as it's effective at treating acne." Er, no. http://www.fda.gov/Drugs/DevelopmentApprovalProcess/HowDrugs... "The goals of the New Drug Application are to provide enough information to permit FDA reviewer to reach the following key decisions: * Whether the drug is safe and effective in its proposed use(s), and whether the benefits of the drug outweigh the risks." Also http://www.fda.gov/drugs/resourcesforyou/consumers/ucm143534... : "It's the clinical trials that take so long -- usually several years". I'm afraid I can't find any actual figures for the typical length of the clinical trials at present. ... "Most academics believe..." Absolute rubbish. For one thing, you've cited only one academic (as "the River" is by a journalist, not a scientist), and he attributed it to "well-meaning European doctors and nurses"... so, er, not the US, and not the government. But, more importantly, there's plenty more academics who think that theory is completely wrong: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11405925 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11405926 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15103367 |