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Peter Juhn, Audrey Phillips, and Kathy Buto Balancing Modern Medical Benefits And Risks Health Affairs, May/June 2007; 26(3): 647-652. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF] [Reprints & Permissions]

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Weighing The Medical Benefits And Risks — A Daunting Task

Dharmagadda Sreedhar, Manthan J, Virendra S L, Ajay P and Udupa N   ( 1 June 2007 )

Weighing The Medical Benefits And Risks — A Daunting Task 1 June 2007
Dharmagadda Sreedhar, Lecturer Manipal College of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Manthan J, Virendra S L, Ajay P and Udupa N Send comment to journal: Re: Weighing The Medical Benefits And Risks — A Daunting Task d.sreedhar{at}manipal.edu Dharmagadda Sreedhar, et al.	The three examples given by Peter Juhn et al. clearly show a wide variety of features and considerations with regard to the benefits and risks of medical interventions. It is a really daunting task to judge and quantify the benefits and risks associated with various medical interventions and even more difficult with a medicine. Moreover, one needs a long time to get a true picture about the risks than the benefits of the medicines. Sometimes the risks are confined to a particular population. In such cases, it would be very difficult for drug developers to conduct the trials in every such population. Looking into all the aspects of drugs' benefits and risks, one question which all of us should ask ourselves is, “Do we really need so many medicines to treat relatively less diseases and ailments?" Most of the medicines which are approved and available in the market are mere analogs of the predecessor safe drugs and have a little advantage over them. Researchers have to focus on the drugs that can treat deadly diseases and ailments rather than wasting the resources in developing drugs that are very much similar and have no major advantages. Earlier days are gone where the goal of drug regulatory authorities was simply to protect the public from poisons. Regulators should play an authoritative role in approving the medicines. They should rightly judge the benefits and risks associated with a drug and also should look in to whether drug is really outweighing the benefits which are already offered by the existing pool of drugs. Not only the regulators, but other three major players — personnel from the pharmaceutical industries who discover, develop, and manufacture the medicines; physicians; and payers — should be unselfish when judging the benefits and risks of medicines for the betterment of the entire health care sector.