One thing that people forget is that science, medicine or otherwise, is a continued (ie forever) process of learning and data accumulation/interpretation.
It is basically impossible to PROVE anything. Even gravity is a theory. We have really good evidence that when you have something really small near something really big (mass not volume), the small one will be drawn the the big one. Uncountable daily confirmations and scientific experiments across all kinds of environements on earth and otherwise.
But noone has been able to explain WHY this should happen or actually find this unspeakable unseen force.
And of course there are multiple theories of gravity. Newtons law of universal gravitation (what most of us think of and use daily) and einsteins general relativity (always been hard for me to wrap my head around).
New information came out and it altered our understanding of the universe. This is good and how science should be practiced.
The same goes for medicine. When will we have enough data to say somethings is safe or “works” (effective? - What that means can be very different to different people). Will our view of what’s good and bad change as we understand more about our bodies and our world? Certainly. And it should.
So do we hold off on all new interventions and medications forever bc new information MAY come out in the future? When is it enough?
Its a VERY hard question to answer. And very different if you have a disease with no cure or treatment vs something for which a reasonably good/effective standard of care exists. Think stage 4 met cancer, some people may be ready to go, but some people, esp children may not, and witholdong a medication that seems effective on the off chance that contradictory information come out in the future seems cruel. At the same time you end up wrong and youll be crucified by society for trying to line the pockets of pharma companies.
But thats how the human race moves forward. We try something, when we get new results and data we make adjustments and try again, and monitor outcomes again, adjust, montitor again, adjust. And, as a provider, every mistake you make in that process is one more nightmare that keeps you up at night.
Thats science. Thousands of experiments that confirm and deny prior results and us using our human brains to put it together in some meaningful way. Then the double challenge for doctors is to take these large pools of data from multiple (often not completely consistent) studies, and apply population level data to individual medicine. It is hard and we’re not always right.
But its stupid to say bc your doctor was wrong or a medication didnt work for you that all of the hundreds and thousands of studies and decades plus work that went into that decision/medication/intervention was wrong as well.
So yes your example of vioxx is a good example of a medication that appeared to have more benefit than harm, but was continued to be monitored after it was started, and pulled when data began to suggest harm that outweighed the benefit.
Good on the fda. Good on science. Keep going. Not a glitch. Quite literally the process.
. Lots of fast good and steak too. The premed years were wild. Regardless statins havent given me any side effects and im really praying that they do as promised for plaque stabilization to help reduce that one in a million chance of early plaque rupture and mi/stroke, etc. And our race/ethnicity/genotype is known for heart disease as well.