US researchers call for drug labels to disclose lack of comparison with other medicines

The labeling information that comes with prescription drugs tells you what is known about the medication, but researchers from the Stanford University School of Medicine in the USA think it is high time that the labeling tell you what is not known.

The researchers want the US Food and Drug Administration to require drug manufacturers to state how new medications compare with similar, existing treatments. In many instance, they say, these statements would indicate that there is no evidence that a new drug is more effective than older ones. They believe this information would make patients and health care insurers less likely to pay for newer treatments without evidence that they lead to improved patient outcomes. It would also spur drug and medical device companies to design more informative clinical trials to test a new product's superiority over existing therapies.