why can’t we eliminate side effects from certain drugs?
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Depends on the mechanism of the side effect.
A blood pressure medication will always have the potential side effect of dizziness because that what happens if you lower blood pressure too much. There is no way around that other than getting the dose right and even then it’s not always perfect.
Off target effects or impurities etc can be fixed but usually by changing the drug’s chemical structure or manufacturing process. For example newer generations of antihistamines don’t cross the blood brain barrier as well and so they don’t cause the same drowsiness older generations do. Or enantiospecific formulations of drugs remove the “inert” enantiomer which isn’t always inert (they also allow for drug companies to get new patent protections but that’s another discussion).
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