The following is a news analysis.
The vast majority of drugs – more than 90 per cent – only work in 30 or 50 per cent of the people.
Dr. Allen Roses, worldwide vice president of genetics at GlaxoSmithKline (2003)
It seemed like a seminal moment.
A top executive with Great Britain’s biggest drug company at the time, GlaxoSmithKline, stated that most prescription drugs don’t work on most people.
The admission was made by Dr. Allen Roses, worldwide vice-president of genetics at GlaxoSmithKline, at a scientific conference in 2003 and not intended for a consumer audience. But the frank statement made its way into popular news and grabbed headlines.
According to one news article, “It is an open secret within the drugs industry that most of its products are ineffective in most patients but this is the first time that such a senior drugs boss has gone public.”
Considering the trillions upon trillions that governments and individuals spend on prescription medicine, it’s a remarkable fact. It means most of the money we spend on drugs is utterly wasted while patients are needlessly exposed to side effects. In other words, most aren’t helped by the medicine they take, but stand to be hurt by it.
At the scientific conference in 2003, Roses cited data on the effectiveness of classes of drugs in real patients. The data showed “drugs for migraines, for osteoporosis, and arthritis work in about half the patients.” The numbers were even worse for cancer drugs. They worked in only one in four patients.
Most drugs work in fewer than half of patients “mainly because the recipients carry genes that interfere in some way with the medicine,” said Roses, an academic geneticist at Duke University.
According to an article at the time in The Independent:
“Roses is a smart guy and what he is saying will surprise the public but not his colleagues,” said one industry scientist. “He is a pioneer of a new culture within the drugs business based on using genes to test for who can benefit from a particular drug.”
Dr Roses has a formidable reputation in the field of “pharmacogenomics” – the application of human genetics to drug development – and his comments can be seen as an attempt to make the industry realise that its future rests on being able to target drugs to a smaller number of patients with specific genes.
The idea is to identify “responders” – people who benefit from the drug – with a simple and cheap genetic test that can be used to eliminate those non-responders who might benefit from another drug.
It’s hard to imagine a more impactful line of research. Yet if any of that has made it into applied medicine in the 20 years since, it’s been kept a secret from us. As far as I know, doctors don’t consider our genetics when prescribing medicine, and don’t disclose to us that there is every likelihood the medicine they’re prescribing won’t work, and aren’t even bothering to gather data from patients to query as to which drugs seem to work best for an individual.
Roses died in 2016. According to a remark in an obituary, “He expected medical students to understand that it was also their responsibility to challenge what they learned and to look for new ideas and new ways to investigate human disease.”
Not enough medical students are learning that today.

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Big Pharma is business PRETENDING to be science.
William Bayer,
In the late-Ninties, the FDA
allowed Big Pharma to
bring drugs to market—if
research confirmed the
level of influence to be as
useful as a P L A C E B O !,
which makes sugar pills
valuable,as means to
effecting healthy outcomes ?
Keep in mind, Freud had
had an initial practice using
HYPNOTISM. Because his
cure rate was so high, he
switched to TALK-Therapy
sessions, which kept sick
patients coming back for
discovery of the MENTAL
Disease causing physical
illness.
-Rick
William Bayer,
In the late-Ninties, the FDA
allowed Big Pharma to
bring drugs to market—if
research confirmed the
level of influence to be as
useful as a P L A C E B O !,
which makes sugar pills
valuable,as means to
effecting healthy outcomes ?
Keep in mind, Freud had
had an initial practice using
HYPNOTISM. Because his
cure rate was so high, he
switched to TALK-Therapy
sessions, which kept sick
patients coming back for
discovery of the MENTAL
Disease causing physical
illness.
-Rick
Big Pharma is business PRETENDING to be science.
This article presents yet more evidence to support the correctly defined financial model which rules the current HealthCare paradigm–aka: ‘Disease Capitalism’ (or sickness maintenance.)
There’s nothing “capitalist” about the deep government involvement in every aspect of health care and pharmaceuticals.
There’s nothing “capitalist” about the deep government involvement in every aspect of health care and pharmaceuticals.
This article presents yet more evidence to support the correctly defined financial model which rules the current HealthCare paradigm–aka: ‘Disease Capitalism’ (or sickness maintenance.)
This highlights the fact that modern cookbook prescribing (following set clinical practice guidelines by the medical establishment) is generally not specific enough for individual patients. It will be difficult to have it evolve to be more individualized due to the need to standardize for insurance and payment processes.
This highlights the fact that modern cookbook prescribing (following set clinical practice guidelines by the medical establishment) is generally not specific enough for individual patients. It will be difficult to have it evolve to be more individualized due to the need to standardize for insurance and payment processes.
Homeopathy works! It worked for my family for over 30 years. I’m a physicist / engineer, not a “medical professional”, but I know cause and effect when I see it.
Homeopathy works! It worked for my family for over 30 years. I’m a physicist / engineer, not a “medical professional”, but I know cause and effect when I see it.
This is astounding and outstanding reportage. I’m a health nut and one of the doctors I read is Dr. Al Sears. He has often said (among other things) and has re-iterated that the drugs prescribed often have side effects while not being very effective.
After this article, I’m going to start taking health food doctors (like Dr Sears, who is an MD and Dr. Mercola, who, I believe, is an Osteopath) more seriously.
I do have one question on this article. The first sentence says, according to Dr. Roses: “The vast majority of drugs – more than 90 per cent – only work in 30 or 50 per cent of the people.” He was the VP of the one time biggest pharmaceutical in England, but what does this statistic mean. Does that mean the other 10% work all the time?
Bryan Taplits,
To fully comprehend the
implications of Big Pharma’s
profit-driven MADNESS,
study the history and power
of H Y P N O T I S M.
Read John Rappoport on
the subject; and read
Blavatsky’s “Isis Unveiled,”
book-II, Einstein’s most
referenced author—pages
592 and 593.
-Rick
P.S.
https://sharylattkisson.com/2023/12/pharma-exec-say-most-drugs-dont-work-on-most-people/#comment-178761
Bryan Taplits,
To fully comprehend the
implications of Big Pharma’s
profit-driven MADNESS,
study the history and power
of H Y P N O T I S M.
Read John Rappoport on
the subject; and read
Blavatsky’s “Isis Unveiled,”
book-II, Einstein’s most
referenced author—pages
592 and 593.
-Rick
P.S.
https://sharylattkisson.com/2023/12/pharma-exec-say-most-drugs-dont-work-on-most-people/#comment-178761
This is astounding and outstanding reportage. I’m a health nut and one of the doctors I read is Dr. Al Sears. He has often said (among other things) and has re-iterated that the drugs prescribed often have side effects while not being very effective.
After this article, I’m going to start taking health food doctors (like Dr Sears, who is an MD and Dr. Mercola, who, I believe, is an Osteopath) more seriously.
I do have one question on this article. The first sentence says, according to Dr. Roses: “The vast majority of drugs – more than 90 per cent – only work in 30 or 50 per cent of the people.” He was the VP of the one time biggest pharmaceutical in England, but what does this statistic mean. Does that mean the other 10% work all the time?
[…] Sharyl Attkisson: A top executive with Great Britain’s biggest drug company at the time, Glaxo… […]
This article and Big Pharma = Every breath you take, every word you speak, every claim you make ? The federal trade commission will be watching you, in over charging for some snake oil’s and false claims = Speed Bump ? ” See the World through your cynical life ??? ( Just some drugs and some drug manufactures have bad formulas, Proof there are many people still alive today thanks to New HIV med’s otherwise many more would be dead by now ? This guy don’t know his but from a whole in ground, also you can thank the drug research for Polio in the 1900’s otherwise more would have suffer ? )
Bill Andrews,
The most tragic result of the Medical Mafia’s
snake-oil scam, for me, has been seeing
TV reports about elder care—noticing how
many prescription bottles are on nightstands,
– 6 to 8, or so ! – elderly take; and knowing,
not one study has been done to learn which
types are DANGEROUS/Deadly to combine :
https://sharylattkisson.com/2023/12/read-dr-fauci-to-appear-before-congress-for-testimony-in-january/#comment-178847
-Rick
Bill Andrews,
The most tragic result of the Medical Mafia’s
snake-oil scam, for me, has been seeing
TV reports about elder care—noticing how
many prescription bottles are on nightstands,
– 6 to 8, or so ! – elderly take; and knowing,
not one study has been done to learn which
types are DANGEROUS/Deadly to combine :
https://sharylattkisson.com/2023/12/read-dr-fauci-to-appear-before-congress-for-testimony-in-january/#comment-178847
-Rick
This article and Big Pharma = Every breath you take, every word you speak, every claim you make ? The federal trade commission will be watching you, in over charging for some snake oil’s and false claims = Speed Bump ? ” See the World through your cynical life ??? ( Just some drugs and some drug manufactures have bad formulas, Proof there are many people still alive today thanks to New HIV med’s otherwise many more would be dead by now ? This guy don’t know his but from a whole in ground, also you can thank the drug research for Polio in the 1900’s otherwise more would have suffer ? )