Health trials conducted in Portugal caused a total of 265 adverse effects in participants over a five-year period with some ending in death, the national medication authority has revealed – adding that this does not mean, per se, that taking part in a health trial is dangerous.
According to Pedro Monteiro, trials director at Coimbra University Hospital, “less than 1% of people who take part in a health trial suffer a serious adverse effect”.
Monteiro added that most of the trials’ participants were people who were already ill, thus “serious adverse effects” could often have been caused by the natural development of their particular illness, “not as a result of the medication under study”.
Allergic reactions are the most difficult to deal with, he added, as they are impossible to predict.
