When it comes to things like depression and ADHD for example, there are many types of drugs offered for them. Different antidepressants, different stimulants (adderall, Ritalin, etc)
My question is, why is it not a “one size fits all?” What is the science behind adderall working for one ADHD person but not for another, and so they need a different kind?
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So despite the nice “not everyone is the same” stuff on here, it has more to do with new drugs being tested against placebo instead of the existing drug in that class. A new antidepressant may easily beat a sugar pill, but could it actually beat good old Prozac in a clinical trial? So this allows drug manufactures to patent and sell every possible formulation they can come up with that is 1. better than nothing and 2. not chemically identical to sometime that already exists. This leads to a system with many times duplicative treatments for the same conditions and because of a lot of reasons, people react to these different formulas differently and then doctors form opinions of these drugs, but a lot of that is maybe conjecture on their part. This is primarily true for mental health related medications, but its true to a lesser extent with medical drugs like different versions of chemotherapy or beta blockers, for instance. And the reason is to make money.
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