When a new cure, treatment, vaccine, etc. comes out after x months or years of testing how do scientists know the effects of the drug longer into the future than the current testing? If a drug has been safe for the past 12 months of testing how do they know it doesn’t kill/harm you at 13 months? Obviously, it has to be released to the public at some point, but how do they make that decision?
In: Biology
They don’t always know what long term effects of chronic treatments are. But for short term treatments (vaccines provide long term protection, but the actual bits of the vaccine are cleared over a relatively short period), once the active ingredient(s) has been cleared by the body and no lingering effects are reported, it’s generally considered safe. It’s unlikely for a drug to be taken, cleared, show no issues for weeks/months/years afterwards, then suddenly cause problems.
Chronic treatments generally either need more long-term data or need to show a significant benefit to the patient in terms of survival or quality of life improvement over the medium term to be accepted.
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