Papers that report drug trials

摘要

Pharmaceutical "reps" are now much more informative than they used to be, but they may show ignorance of basic epidemiology and clinical trial design. The value of a drug should be expressed in terms of safety, tolerability, efficacy, and price. The efficacy of a drug should ideally be measured in terms of clinical end points that are relevant to patients; if surrogate end points are used they should be valid. Promotional literature of low scientific validity (such as uncontrolled before and after trials) should not be allowed to influence practice.