The drugs don't work....

[Jimjams]

Thought this was interesting:

news.independent.co.uk/world/science_medical/story.jsp?story=471139

[anais]

What, they actually admit it????

Well that's a first.

[melsy]

Well well . So he redeems himself with the genetic testing. So now we dont have to feel completely nuts if certain meds dont do anything, or give adverse reactions.

[Mo2]

To be fair, I think this is a classic case of the media turning around a story for maximum news value.
Once you dig deep into this one you find out that it's actually about the fact that like many things in life (clothes for example) drugs are best matched to individuals, and that a 'one size fits all' approach is not the answer. That's why if you find that a particular drug/ course of treatment doesn't seem to be working for you, it's good to try a slightly different one, which may match your genetic make-up better. What's being proposed at the moment is some form of easy genetic testing to make sure better matches are made up front.
Unfortunately such facts don't make such exciting headlines

[Jimjams]

I think this has been fairly well known for years. Just suprised that a senior official said it really.

A lot of drugs don't work that well on women for example as they are more often tested on men- seem to remember reading that ages ago. And of course drugs aren't tested on children so that's a lot of guess work until its been around for many years. Alos the reason why old drugs are safer than newer ones.