Less than 6 percent of medical drugs have high-quality evidence to support their benefits, according to a recent study by the University of Oxford.
The study found that, of the 1,567 eligible medications approved under the Cochrane Reviews from 2008 to 2021, more than 94 percent were not supported by high-quality evidence.
Cochrane Reviews is a leading international journal and database combining all available and relevant evidence about treatments and health care policies. It is often referenced in national and international health care guidelines, and is especially prominent in Europe.
Reviewing Cochrane Reviews’ 35 percent of research papers, researchers found less than half of the drugs approved from 2008 to 2021 had moderate to high-quality evidence. Further, harms were underreported, with around 37 percent of interventions found with harm and 8.1 percent had significant evidence of harm….