1) Half of all prescriptions don’t work for the patients. Most drugs have an efficacy between 20 and 80 percent, averaging around 50 percent. Meaning that they only have their intended effect half the time. That might be awesome in baseball, but it’s hardly reassuring in medicine.
2) Chemotherapy is effective – defined as remission – in just 5 to 10 percent of breast and colon cancer cases. This is likewise startling (the stat comes from Randall Scott of Genomic Health). And factor in the fact that chemo costs about $30,000 per patient per year, and there’s a massively ineffecient treatment module out there.
3) Six weeks – that’s how long it takes, give or take, for a physician to determine whether a given antidepressant is working for a patient. And given that only half of drugs work, that’s a rather long time for a patient to go effectively without a treatment for their depression or mental illness. (This from Wolfgang Sadee, chair of the pharmacology department at Ohio State).