[sszz]

This is a super pessimistic and misleading description of phase 2 & 3 trials; actual efficacious drugs do come out of the FDA review process. Many phase 3 trials are against standard of care rather than placebo and many are longer than a few weeks, particularly for treatments where efficacy is hard to prove.

[Alex3917]

> Many phase 3 trials are against standard of care rather than placebo and many are longer than a few weeks

Yeah but they (usually) don't have to be tested against the existing standard of care, or tested longer than a few weeks. So really it's misleading to claim that Phase III trials guarantee anything other than the extremely minimal standard of safety and efficacy that they actually guarantee.

[ozfive]

Or take a long time to prove such as against cancer.