Drug companies are forced to make data public
Drug companies are torn. On the one hand, their stockholders demand that they produce medications that are more effective than the comptetition's. On the other hand, patients demand that drugs be safe to take. So drug companies conduct research on the effectiveness of their drugs. But if the drug shows little benefit in one study and a bigger benefit in a second study, only the second study is published.
Now drug companies are being forced to publish all their data in raw form at a public web page. Any researcher can access the data and analyze it. Perhaps full disclosure will improve our medication choices? Or will it just confuse us?
1 comments:
The idea of sharing data about drugs and their effects is a tough choice. On the one hand it could benefit those who are more trained in the industry, providing more thorough information and all possible outcomes. Conversely, someone who might not know as much may not take a drug that ideally would be their best option, simply because they believe it to have a higher risk factor. Ultimately I believe that publishing this data is a better option in the long run. Trained individuals will be able to evaluate for a less educated individual as to what their best option might be.
A perfect example of this article can be found here. It is a story of a couple directly effected by this new decision.
http://www.thevillagesdailysun.com/articles/2007/05/23/news/news01.txt
Karl 4553
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