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In what can be termed as a rude wake-up call for millions of patients taking medication, five out of six approved prescription drugs seldom benefit them, claims a new study. According to experts, despite stringent reforms to shield the public from harmful drugs, the harm-benefit ratio is worsening due to relaxed rules that allow companies to promote drugs for unapproved uses. Drug companies have a tendency of misleading the gullible public by hyping up patented medicines and underplaying their serious side effects. Nearly 85 percent of the new drugs offer very few if any benefits superior to the existing drugs, while they are twice as likely to harm patients due to toxicity or misuse. According to Dr Donald Light, a professor of comparative health policy at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey who authored the study, “Sometimes drug companies hide or downplay information about serious side effects of new drugs and overstate the drugs’ benefits. “Then, they spend two to three times more on marketing than on research to persuade doctors to prescribe these new drugs. “Doctors may get misleading information and then misinform patients about the risks of a new drug. It’s really a two-tier market for lemons.” Systematic review conducted. Light carried out systematic reviews based on a wide range of data from independent sources and studies. The findings indicate that only one in six new drugs is superior to existing drugs. Most of the new drugs result in side effects serious enough to warrant action by the health regulators, including black box warnings, adverse reaction warnings, or even withdrawal of the drug. Citing the example of chloresterol-lowering statins, Light stated that drugs companies had reduced the link between heart disease, saturated fats and cholesterol into a simple refrain that "cholesterol kills". However, two clinical trials of statins were unable to establish that they cut the risk of heart attacks. One major meta-analysis of a number of studies, found that "statins were not associated with reduction in the risk of all-cause mortality.” Clinical trials flawed - Light accuses pharmaceutical companies of designing flawed clinical trials that minimize evidence of toxic side effects. Many a times the companies test the new drugs on a healthier population atypical of patients who will actually take the drug, excluding people who are older, poorer or who have multiple health problems. Trials are run just long enough to highlight the main benefits but not long enough to detect some long term side effects. Approvals are based on these data, drugs with harmful effects sometimes get through. Light stated, "The result is that drugs get approved without anyone being able to know how effective they really are or how much serious harm they will cause." The findings of the study were presented on Aug. 17 at the 105th Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association in Atlanta.