Pill Poppers Part 2 of 6

Pill Poppers – BBC Horizon (2010) How much is really known about the medicines we take, and can they be trusted to work? Over a person’s lifetime they are likely to be prescribed more than 14000 pills. Antibiotics, cholesterol lowering tablets, anti-depressants, painkillers, even tablets to extend youth and improve performance in bed. These drugs perform minor miracles day after day, but how much is really known about them? Drug discovery often owes as much to serendipity as to science, and that means much is learnt about how medicines work, or even what they do, when they’re taken. By investigating some of the most popular pills people pop, Horizon asks, how much can they be trusted to do what they are supposed to? Chapter 1: Pill Poppers: Introduction Over the course of a lifetime, each person on average will be prescribed more than 14000 pills; but do the experts actually know what the effects are? Chapter 2: Developing Drugs. The GSK pharmaceutical lab holds over 2 million nameless chemical compounds. These compounds could be toxic, or they could be a miracle cure; but how do the scientists find out? Chapter 3: The Effects of Drugs on the Healthy. Two people discuss the outcomes of the drug Ritalin, which is prescribed to patients with ADHD. One person actually has the condition, while the other doesn’t; what will the results show? Chapter 4: The Success of Viagra. Research Fellow Chris Wayman talks about how one of the best-selling drugs of all time came to be. Some …