Question

why some "clinically proven" medications don't work for some people but do provide relief for others. If the null hypothesis was rejected (i.e., a real effect of the medication was observed), why doesn't the medication work for everyone? Why is the manufacturer of the medication allowed to claim their product helps relieve symptoms when it doesn't work for everyone?

Answer 1

This is an example of statistical principles applied in real life. clinically proven" medications don't work for some people but do provide relief for others. For a medicine to be clinically proven, it has to go through various trials where there are control groups and the treatment groups. Overall it is a very long process for approval. It's effects, symptoms and immunity/non-immunity to certain bugs are studied in deep detail. If it is able to pass through all the loops thrown at it, then finally it is approved.

Now coming back to the question. Why doesn't the medicine work for everyone? Well certain people, due to prolonged usage of a similar drug may have developed antibodies and immunity against the medicine(called drug resistance) and it does not affect them anymore. Or they have naturally acting antibodies against this drug. Or they just don't take the approved amount of it or there can be a lot other reasons for the drug not working for this very small select class of people. The manufactures factors in for the drug to work in for the majority of the population. It would be really time consuming and moreover expensive to make it work for everybody, specially this select group of population. Isolating them proves to be a huge challenge. So thus the manufacturer of the medication are allowed to claim their product helps relieve symptoms when it doesn't work for everyone, because it works for majority of the population. Majority rules.

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