• Question: what happens when a drug test goes wrong?

    Asked by raeeshussain to Jack, Jon, Tom, Yalda on 19 Mar 2013. This question was also asked by ibrahimabdelaal, rammiyankesavan.
    • Photo: Tom Branson

      Tom Branson answered on 19 Mar 2013:

      Sometimes when testing a new drug it can not work in the way you expected. Either the patient gets bad side-effects or the drug just doesn’t help at all. This does happen quite a lot as not many drugs make it through all the trials. If there are bad side-effects then the scientists should find out what is happening and stop the trial.

      An example of a trial going “wrong” is with Viagra. You might have heard of it… The trial was to see if it helped heart conditions but it had other side-effects and is now used for the side-effect instaed of its original use.

    • Photo: Jack Heal

      Jack Heal answered on 19 Mar 2013:

      Most of the time, drugs will get thrown out if they don’t making through testing. Either that or they get changed and then tested again. It’s a really long, rigorous process and not many drugs make it through, compared to how many possible ones there are at the start of testing.

      One really sad case was the case of the drug thalidomide in the 1950s and 1960s. This was supposed to be a sleeping pill, and was given to lots of pregnant women to help with morning sickness. However, people found out too late that it caused birth defects and tragically lots of babies were born with deformities. Because of cases like this, people have become aware of the dangers of not testing drugs properly. That’s why the testing is so important and detailed and lengthy now.

    • Photo: Yalda Javadi

      Yalda Javadi answered on 19 Mar 2013:

      eeeeek. When drug testing goes wrong it can go really wrong. People have become seriously ill, become badly swollen, had babies born with deformities… and died.

      These are very rare though, but they do happen. There are always risks with testing out new drugs.

    • Photo: anon

      anon answered on 19 Mar 2013:

      All sorts of things can go wrong – the drugs can have bad side effects that no-one predicted. One of the reasons for animal testing is to try and catch any drugs that might be harmful but it doesn’t always work. That’s also why when medicines are first tested in people something called “dose escalation” is used. This means that you give the first people a small dose of the drug & if it doesn’t harm them you give the next people a bit more and then the next people a bit more… until the side effects are too bad and you stop increasing the dose.

Comments