One of the ways drug companies get around side effects in their trials is to have a "run in" period before the trial starts. The run in period is to eliminate people from the trial that have problems taking the drug. So when the official trial starts, most anyone that was going to have side effects has already been eliminated from the trial. They did this in some statin trials.

So as far as your doctor knows, according to the trials almost no one has side effects. The drug company rep can show him "proof" that side effects are rare. Rare they may be, but sucks if you happen to be the rare one. Been there, done that.