How many lives has the medical industry destroyed by artificially limiting the supply of physicians?

http://pulitzercenter.org/reporting/north-america-united-sta...

How many lives has the pharmaceutical industry destroyed by selling harmful substances?

http://www.amazon.com/Bad-Pharma-Companies-Mislead-Patients/...

I don't think companies spend as much as we believe in researching drugs. Companies spend most on advertising and incentivizing the doctors to prescribe their medicines. The book: Bad Pharma [1] is an eye opener.

The drug "Sovaldi" is making them $2.8ish billion dollars per quarter, that is almost $12 billion a year. I don't believe they spent tens of billions in developing the drug. [2]

1: http://www.amazon.com/Bad-Pharma-Companies-Mislead-Patients-...

2: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-10-28/gilead-reports-lowe...

If anyone is interested in this stuff, consider pickingthe book Bad Pharama By Goldacre

http://www.amazon.com/Bad-Pharma-Companies-Mislead-Patients/...

He takes an in depth look at the current problems data with the phar. industry

Its more complex than you would think, this is a good tome on the subject (albeit a bit dry) http://www.amazon.com/Bad-Pharma-Companies-Mislead-Patients/...

> 31 kids could've died because 1 religious zealot refused vaccinations.

What about the 30 million people who have died of the AIDS epidemic, which is thought to have been started because of government vaccination programs?[1]

Similarly, what about the fact that the US government has been repeatedly caught giving out fake vaccinations?[2] Or the fact that the safety standards for medicine in the US are generally abysmal?[3]

All in all I think getting vaccinated is generally a good bet, but the idea that there are no rational arguments against vaccination is completely disingenuous.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_HIV/AIDS

[2] http://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/jul/11/cia-fake-vaccin...

[3] http://www.amazon.com/Bad-Pharma-Companies-Mislead-Patients/...

Ben Goldacre's Bad Pharma ( http://www.amazon.com/Bad-Pharma-Companies-Mislead-Patients/... http://www.amazon.co.uk/Bad-Pharma-companies-mislead-patient... ) covers some of the same ground.

He's a physician who writes mostly about bad science reporting, pseudo-science and quackery and Bad Pharma is all about the tricks that pharmaceutical companies get up to to ensure that trials with negative outcomes never see the light of day and to try and spin their products in the best posible light - like telling doctors that drug X is more effective than a placebo, but failing to mention that it's no more effective than existing drugs on the market. Ultimately, if the doctors who are prescribing the drug don't have the complete picture, how are they supposed to make an informed choice about what to give you?

I heard him talk a few weeks ago and while I might not call him 100% unbiased (I think that some of his allegations are a touch exaggerated in terms of their potential harm) he's definitely very interesting and eye-opening.