Drug trials

Washington Monthly, May, 2006 by Charles Peters

> We have often complained about the failure of the FDA to make sure that once drugs are approved for marketing, there are follow-up studies to see how the drugs perform and to identify whatever unanticipated side effects might develop. Now comes hard evidence to support our complaint in the form of a revelation reported by the Associated Press that 65 percent of the studies of the drugs that pharmaceutical companies had promised to undertake remain "pending."