Prescribing medications to children can cause problems; many of them have not had their effects on children researched.
Even in ones that have, the consequences of using them over the course of a lifetime is usually unknown
there's an ongoing discussion about which is more dangerous: alternative medicine or prescription drugs?
A recent survey led found four deaths between 2001 and 2003 that were associated with use of alternative treatments in Australia.
However, deaths associated with use of dietary supplements or alternative medicine are extremely rare compared to the death toll from the medical errors and prescription drugs.
Yet despite the well-documented dangers of prescription drugs and a painful recession, drug companies still represent the nation's third most profitable business sector in the U.S.
How do they do that?
At least in part by cheating the government, misrepresenting science, and bribing doctors. Writing 15 ways the drug companies lie, break the law, or risk your health for profit.
Here are a few of them:
- Astroturf Patients
They create fake patient advocacy groups to lobby for drug company interests. These front groups often push the FDA to approve an expensive drug that has acceptable, cheaper alternatives.
- Cheating the Government
Drug companies are a top defrauder of the federal government. They've been hit with $14.8 billion in wrongdoing settlements in the last five years -- but that's still cheaper than going about things the legal way.
- Dangerous Trials
Presiding over clinical trials can make a doctor thousands per patient -- and sometimes they compromise patient safety just to get at that money.
- Deceptive Trials
Trials that only determine that a drug is "not worse" than another one can skew results. And some research deliberately skewed, with results decided upon before the trial is ever conducted.
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