I encourage everyone to read this article. I don't think I can read another medical abstract quite the same way again after this ...
Some key points:
- Companies (even the biggest ones) are massaging data to an unbelievable degree to get their drugs approved. This includes excluding data and misrepresenting data.
- Companies pay the FDA $500,000 for each drug approved. The FDA is therefore approving more and more (useless and sometimes harmful) drugs, even when the studies supporting the drugs are clearly flawed and massaged.