Why are “headaches” an acceptable side effect of medicine used to treat headaches?
In: Biology
If you look at pretty much any drug, they will have a side effect of headache and/or nausea/vomiting/diarrhea. These are just common things that happen. In order to have it listed as a side effect, often it just has to happen enough in the treatment group. It doesn’t always matter if there is a difference between the treatment and control group (I saw a package insert that listed “infection” as a side effect even though infections occurred less frequently in the treatment group than in the control group). Basically, it’s a way to cover one’s ass.
To summarize : people get headaches relatively. Sometimes it occurs when people take medicine. Companies list headache as a side effect as a CYA measure.
Because not everyone experiences all side effects, it may only be that 10-15% of the group tests reported headaches/worse headaches, so enough to warrant it being listed, but not enough to keep it from being sold cuz hey, its gonna work for the majority of people.
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