Drug Trials Quotes & Sayings

Consider the clinicaltrials by which drugs are tested in human subjects.5 Before a new drug can enter the market, its manufacturer must sponsor clinicaltrials to show the Food and Drug Administration that the drug is safe and effective, usually as compared with a placebo or dummy pill. The results of all the trials (there may be many) are submitted to the FDA, and if one or two trials are positive - that is, they show effectiveness without serious risk - the drug is usually approved, even if all the other trials are negative. — Marcia Angell

When a company is fairly certain of a profit margin that is substantial, it can assume responsibility for the clinical trials to develop a blockbuster drug. — Anthony Fauci

It also makes me wonder whether we might soon see pain relief trials funded not by drug companies, but by the gaming industry. — Jo Marchant

Adding an overarching tier of tyrants the EU to European governments has benefited Europeans as a second hangman enhances the health of a condemned man. — Ilana Mercer

due to the fact that drug companies have limited interest in sponsoring clinical trials in this area, due to a limited potential for profit. There is little to no money to be made from essential oils within the pharmaceutical industry, as they are natural products derived from natural sources, and therefore, are not patentable. Patents on drug design and manufacture are the number one source of revenue in the pharmaceutical industry. — Amy Joyson

AZT was never meant to treat HIV. It was meant to treat cancer and, when it was discovered to be toxic, the drug companies stopped clinic trials of the drug because it was so toxic. Is this drug really one we want to use? — Manto Tshabalala-Msimang

The placebo effect is well documented and not even very mysterious. Dummy pills, with no pharmacological activity at all, demonstrably improve health. That is why double-blind drug trials must use placebos as controls. It's why homoeopathic remedies appear to work, even though they are so dilute that they have the same amount of active ingredient as the placebo control - zero molecules. — Richard Dawkins

Nothing will make us so charitable and tender to the faults of others as by self-examination thoroughly to know our own. — Francois Fenelon

A fruitless endeavor, as my knowledge was definitely the fruity type. — Darynda Jones

When a drug comes out [that's broadly prescribed] there are going to start to be a lot of people on it [in a million person cohort] and you might get therefore an early signal of something unexpected that hadn't come through in the clinical trials. And I'm sure [drug companies] would love it if, in fact, FDA, recognizing that, would say, OK, maybe you don't have to do your trial with 30,000 people because we're going to find out shortly after registration because we'll have a lot of people taking the drug and we'll be able to see what happened using PMI. — Francis Collins

Wilson-Donovan had already submitted their application to the FDA in January, months before. Based on the information they were developing now, they were going to ask for Vicotec to be put on the "Fast Track," pressing ahead with human trials of the drug, and eventually early release, once the FDA saw how safe it was and Wilson-Donovan proved it to them. The "Fast Track" process was used in order to speed the various steps toward approval, in the case of drugs to be used in life-threatening diseases. Once they got approval from the FDA, they were going to start with a group of one hundred people who would sign informed consent agreements, acknowledging the potential dangers of the treatment. They were all so desperately ill, it would be their only hope, and they knew it. The people who signed up for experiments like this were — Danielle Steel

Man is a demon, man is a god. — Elizabeth Gilbert

Adamson feels that drug developers are unreasonably concerned about rare events. The reality is children tolerate phase I therapy new agents being tested to find the best dosage and possible side-effects as well as or better than adults, ... Once the initial studies are done that is, phase I trials in adults study should begin in children. — Peter Adamson

In 2004, the FDA urged drug companies to adopt a 'Don't ask, don't tell' policy with respect to their clinical-trial data showing that antidepressants are not better than placebos for depressed children. If the data were made public, they cautioned, it might lead doctors to not prescribe antidepressants. The FDA believed that the jury was still out on antidepressants for children. Even if the clinical trials show negative results, an FDA spokesperson was reported to have said to a Washington Post reporter, it doesn't mean that the drugs are ineffective. The assumption seems to have been that doctors should prescribe medications that have not been shown to work, until it has been proven that they don't work. — Irving Kirsch

A review of seventy-four clinical trials of antidepressants, for example, found that thirty-seven of thirty-eight positive studies [that praised the drugs] were published. But of the thirty-six negative studies, thirty-three were either not published or published in a form that conveyed a positive outcome. — Marcia Angell

I get a little nauseous and disoriented watching 3D, but as a kid I loved it and I was really into it, so if a movie can be in 3D, then why not? — Emily Meade

Skeptics might argue that pharmaceutical companies will fight anything that casts their products in a dubious light - especially if it results in people using lower doses across the board - but the truth is that, for many drug companies, reliable information on the placebo effect can't come soon enough. To pass muster, a drug must outperform placebo. But a 2001 study of antidepressant drug trials showed that while drug efficacy is rising, placebo rates are rising faster. It's almost ironic; the factors behind this are many and varied, but a significant contributor is our society's knowledge of - and belief in - the power of medicines. The pharmaceutical industry's palpable success means that unless something radical happens, it could soon be, like the Red Queen, running to stand still. — Michael Brooks

With its brutal excesses and reliance on snitches and finks as informants, I don't think it's far off-kilter to describe the modern-day drug war as oddly similar to the Salem witch trials. — Joel Miller

According to an article in the Washington Post: The Food and Drug Administration has repeatedly urged antidepressant manufacturers not to disclose to physicians and the public that some clinical trials of the medications in children found that drugs were no better than sugar pills, according to documents and testimony released at a congressional hearing yesterday. Regulators supressed the negative information on the grounds that it might scare families and physicians away from the drugs, according to testimony by drug company executives. For at least three medications, they said, the FDA blocked the companies' plans to reveal the negative studies in drug labels. — Irving Kirsch

A meticulous virtual copy of the human brain would enable basic research on brain cells and circuits or computer-based drug trials. — Henry Markram