Quote:
Originally Posted by Cyllya
Not counting medical or marketing jargon and just looking at normal English, "effect" means something that happens as a result of something and "side" (as an adjective) means "happening or done in addition to the main or most important thing." So a side effect is literally any result that happens other than the one you were aiming for. It means the same thing outside of the context of medication.
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But the marketing is the whole point. Pharma marketing and propagandizing manipulates people into believing its drugs are fixing some known pathology in a targeted way, and the other effects are somehow of lesser significance. But that is a conceptual con. Most drugs fix nothing. They produce a wide range of effects and symptoms.
If I take too much magnesium, I might get loose stools. That is a side effect. The main effect is that of increasing tissue levels of magnesium.
Many early psych drugs were discovered accidentally, as unintended side effects of drugs for completely different ailments, like TB. Change the marketing up, and presto now you have an "antidepressant".