Many people believe that it is needlessly confusing and intellectually futile to seek distinctions between health and medical claims. Safe and effective never means safe and effective for all persons. Rare, serious, adverse events may only surface for the first time after substantial experience in the population. These are usually not predictable from animal studies or the amount of pre-registration clinical data usually available. Thus, there is a need for post-marketing surveillance, not a paralysis over possible adverse events.
Claims are either fundamentally true or false, data provide only persuasion and quantification.
Aspirin was not subjected to clinical trials until the 1980s, but salicylates have been relieving pain and providing anti-inflammatory benefits for centuries.