Why Drug Trials Aren’t Enough to Make Sure Medicines Work

Clinical trials tell us that many drugs offer a risk of harm without the promise of relief—but what can we do?

Doctors prescribe drugs in hopes that the patient will gain relief, but only some patients will. Personalized medicine offers hope of a better approach. megaflopp/Shutterstock

There was a moment when, as a pharmacist, I realized that a lot of people to whom I gave medicine were going to receive little benefit or even none at all.

Health care staff make clinical decisions on when to use one medicine or another based upon evidence drawn from clinical trials. Clinical trials give us the data that show the probability that a medicine will have the desired effect—but there is also the chance that it won’t.