Stockmarket pressure to find “blockbuster” drugs has forced drug companies to push products to market ever more aggressively. In the case of Merck’s painkiller Vioxx, this had disastrous and lethal results. This is the story of how a blockbuster backfired.
There are two remarkable things about the painkiller Vioxx. One was its disastrous impact on those [...]

Since NATO forces invaded Afghanistan, the production of heroin in the country increased by 2.5 times and Afghanistan has become the world leader in heroin production. Eighteen tonnes of heroin from Afghanistan ends up in Russia each year.
As a result of this war Russia has become one of the main markets for Afghan opiates, involuntary [...]

Only 43% of the evidence of safety and efficacy that the US Food and Drug Administration uses to approve drugs is published in scientific journals. The authors of the survey say this amounts to “scientific misconduct”.
 

 
The results of more than half of all clinical trials that demonstrate the safety and effectiveness of new drugs are [...]