Are Your Medications Safe and Effective? - FDA Drug Approval and the Accelerated Approval Program

Explore the evolution of FDA drug approval processes and their impact on medication safety and effectiveness in this 37-minute lecture featuring Harvard physician-researcher Jerry Avorn. Examine how the FDA's rigorous gold standard approval process has been transformed by the Accelerated Approval Program, originally created for AIDS and cancer patients in the 1990s, which now allows over half of new drugs to reach market before companies prove their actual benefits to patients. Discover specific examples from Avorn's book "Rethinking Medications: Truth, Power and the Drugs We Take," including ineffective cold medicines, expensive cancer treatments that only improve lab results, and the controversial Alzheimer's drug Aduhelm that was approved despite showing no clear cognitive benefits. Learn to critically evaluate whether medications in your own medicine cabinet are truly safe, effective, and worth their cost through this comprehensive analysis of modern pharmaceutical regulation and drug development practices.