How big pharma and regulators fail clinicians

Abstract

Generalists daily make poor evidence-based decisions because regulatory and ethics committees fail them and drug companies habitually misrepresent products. The pervasiveness of this perversion – at least overseas – is best illustrated by the equivalent of R131.4 billion in healthcare fraud settlements made by pharmaceutical corporates in the USA over the last 10 years, with the most recent individual company fines breaking all records.