When is a drug trial not a drug trial?

[FluffyMcDeath]

When it's a marketing tactic.

The purpose of seeding trials is not to advance research but to make doctors familiar with a new drug.
In a typical seeding trial, a pharmaceutical company will identify several hundred doctors and invite them to take part in a research study. Often the doctors are paid for each subject they recruit. As the trial proceeds, the doctors gradually get to know the drug, making them more likely to prescribe it later.

Great, huh?

 

[Dammy]

Great, huh?

Depends on two things. One if the drug actually works or not. If it doesn't, the Dr will never prescribe it again. Second if the drug is actually available to try: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/h...xtending-drugs-despite-Government-pledge.html

 

[FluffyMcDeath]

Depends on two things. One if the drug actually works or not. If it doesn't, the Dr will never prescribe it again.

Depends on whether the doctor BELIEVES that it works (quite a different matter) and how the doctor feels about the relationship with the company that was paying him. It's just another example of doctors being bribed to prescribe.

Second if the drug is actually available to try: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/h...xtending-drugs-despite-Government-pledge.html

Just another illustration of why private development of drugs is so insidious. Drugs always work the best while still under patent protection while the price is high. Effectiveness falls off rapidly once patents expire.

 

[Glaucus]

You may have a point, but at the same time there has got to be a way to educate doctors on that drug. Drugs have been evolutionary for some time now, new ones come out that may be only slightly better then the prior ones. That's not a bad thing really. And not all drugs are just thrown at the masses, most of those drugs are limited to in hospital use. The intensive care units for example administer much of their drugs intravenously. But, more to the point, doctors in these types of environments, who deal with very critical patients and watch over their recovery, also tend to see first hand the effectiveness of e drug and tend to make up their own mind. My sister tells me they tend to stick to drugs they know and trust and from what she tells me she's fully aware of any marketing bs from the drug companies.

 

[FluffyMcDeath]

You may have a point, but at the same time there has got to be a way to educate doctors on that drug. Drugs have been evolutionary for some time now, new ones come out that may be only slightly better then the prior ones.

But there are also a lot of drugs that are merely new and not slightly better but have the "advantage" of sufficient slight changes to be patentable - this way pharma companies tinker around the edges of a successful drug just to keep a monopoly - the old unencumbered versions are then buried under new marketing. It's a way to maintain profits but it's a waste of resources in research and in treatment. Patient outcomes are not the number one determinant of success in a for profit system.

[...]doctors in these types of environments, who deal with very critical patients and watch over their recovery, also tend to see first hand the effectiveness of e drug and tend to make up their own mind.

Unfortunately individual experience is not always a good indication of effectiveness. An individual is subject to observational and expectational biases which is why large scale double blind studies are done. Physicians of old were really convinced that bleeding and other bizarre practices were effective - any time someone recovered, even if it was in fact despite the treatment, it validated for the practitioner that the treatment was efficacious.

My sister tells me they tend to stick to drugs they know and trust and from what she tells me she's fully aware of any marketing bs from the drug companies.

They stick to the drugs they know which is precisely what these trials are for. Once a physician has a treatment he is reluctant to try other treatments (nor does he have to time and resources or moral comfort to try varying treatments against each other experimentally). The treatment the doctor is introduced to tends to become the one that they adopt going forwards.
Doctors may nonetheless be "aware" of the bs but that doesn't mean that it doesn't work. It does and the pharma companies have spent the money to make sure that it works.