On: Third member of U.S. FDA advisory panel resigns ov...

[devoutsalsa]

I am a smart person, and I am not remotely qualified to make decisions about the risks associated with an untested drug. I’d like to know when I get a prescription that someone else went through the process of being a willing volunteer in a clinical trial.

[bencoder → devoutsalsa]

Your doctor should be able to help with that and provide you only drugs that have completed clinical trials to your desired standard.

[kvathupo → bencoder]

Frankly, I think most doctors aren't qualified to make such a decision by virtue of lacking PhDs: their expertise is in clinical care, not in evaluating research.

[chinathrow → bencoder]

Your doctor is a smart person too but they can't simply check every single medication single handily. What even is "your desired standard" here?

[greeneggs → chinathrow]

Sure, but the doctor doesn't have to do much research in this case. This is front-page news in the NY Times. And about "every single medication": this is the only approved medication to delay clinical decline due to Alzheimer's. And there are only a few medications to treat symptoms.

I know this isn't a perfect world, but it doesn't seem to be asking a lot for a doctor to know this. (Especially for a drug that currently costs $56K/year and presumably will cost more next year.)

[setpatchaddress → greeneggs]

You seem to have an incredibly optimistic view of the both the medical profession and human attention span.

[kesselvon → bencoder]

Doctors heavily rely on FDA to filter for effective drugs, they're not researchers with the skills to identify whether a drug has efficacy.