By doing so, the agency ensures that there are data to support the safety and efficacy of each treatment before it is put into use. The practice of contemporary medicine is not a religious experience.
Physicians first become familiar with the use of a few drugs during medical school.
Staying abreast of new drug developments and new uses for established drugs, however, is a challenge physicians face throughout their careers. It is widely acknowledged that pharmaceutical industry-sponsored programs play an important role in informing and updating physicians of drug developments. These activities can, however, be used also for surreptitious promotion of the sponsor's products, thereby undermining the unbiased exchange of scientific experience, promulgating unsubstantiated therapy, endangering patients and compromising professional ethics. But there is a fine line between acceptable educational efforts and programs that are promotional in tone, content or emphasis or, worse, that convey false or misleading information. The distinction between educational and promotional activities may not always be obvious.