
When half a million Americans died and nobody noticed - gruseom
http://www.theweek.co.uk/us/46535/when-half-million-americans-died-and-nobody-noticed
======
Alex3917
Still happening today with sedative hypnotics (e.g. xanax, ambien), where a
recent study estimated that these drugs were killing 300,000 - 500,000
Americans each year:

[http://www.medicaldaily.com/news/20120228/9190/sleeping-
pill...](http://www.medicaldaily.com/news/20120228/9190/sleeping-pill-cancer-
premature-death-barbiturates-research.htm)

This is despite the fact that the government recommends against prescribing
them for longterm use since all the research shows that these drugs have zero
efficacy (in fact negative efficacy) after the first ten days or so. And yet
most doctors hand out longterm prescriptions for these drugs like candy since
they either have no idea about this research or simply don't care. In fact
they are some of the most widely prescribed drugs in the US.

(Note that it's not entirely clear that they really are killing 300 - 500k
Americans each year, as other studies find no excess deaths, but what is clear
is that the longterm use of them is terrible for you and that they have zero
longterm efficacy in the first place.)

~~~
Estragon

      > a recent study estimated that these drugs were killing 
      > 300,000 - 500,000 Americans each year
    

Looks like sloppy epidemiology to me. The only way to nail a claim like that
down would be to establish a control group with very similar life stressors,
something you couldn't do from medical records. People take sleeping pills
because they're under stress bad enough to keep them from sleeping, and that
has an impact on survival rates.

    
    
      > what is clear is that the longterm use of them is terrible
      > for you and that they have zero longterm efficacy in the
      > first place.)
    

This is interesting. What's the evidence?

~~~
Alex3917
"This is interesting. What's the evidence?"

<http://www.madinamerica.com/2011/11/anxiety/>

The actual book (Anatomy of an Epidemic) explains it better, but those are
just some quick links. They're also vastly more addictive than heroin. While
the worst of heroin withdrawals are over in less than a week, benzo
withdrawals can literally last over a year, with people unable to sleep and in
severe pain that entire time:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benzodiazepine_withdrawal_syndr...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benzodiazepine_withdrawal_syndrome)

~~~
delackner
This cannot be stressed enough. Benzodiazepines are insidious because people
get used to taking them when they have trouble sleeping, and when they try to
stop, they cannot sleep properly for a very long time. I have seen this happen
with two of my friends, and it is painful just to watch. Not being able to
sleep is a crippling enough horror that people go right back to consuming. To
paraphrase Fight Club: NO, what you NEED is some exercise, good food, and to
relax.

~~~
DanBC
The Z drugs are not benzos.

To claim that the Z drugs are "vastly more addictive than heroin" is, frankly,
ridiculous.

Rebound insomnia is nasty; and the Z drugs should be treated with respect; and
sleep hygiene should be tried first; but it's stupid to scare people with
nonsense like "addictive as heroin".

------
nkoren
I can actually see how this would be difficult to spot. Look at the graph of
American death rates from the CDC:

<http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db88_fig1.png>

If you know where to look, there is indeed a small spike from 2000-2005,
corresponding with the availability of Vioxx. The rise in 2000 is barely
noticeable, but the drop in 2005 is fairly striking. This makes sense: the
drug would have been taken up gradually by the market, but its cessation was
virtually overnight.

The reason this would be difficult to spot, however, is because death rates
did not really _increase_. Rather, they stayed more or less constant, when
they might otherwise have gradually decreased. In hindsight, this looks
plausible -- but at the time, saying that death rates would be decreasing were
it not for Vioxx would have been an extremely difficult counterfactual
argument to make.

~~~
planetguy
I think you've seriously gotta squint to make the data you're talking about
look like anything other than noise.

~~~
ajross
That's not right. Correlations with data this large can be proven quite
conclusively even if the signal is low. There are a _lot_ of deaths every
year, so even fairly small relative signals are resolvable.

What's interesting here though is that this is _not_ a small signal, precisely
because it shows up against the background without any correlation work at
all. FTA:

> "We find the largest rise in American mortality rates [in the last 15 years]
> occurred in 1999, the year Vioxx was introduced, while the largest drop
> occurred in 2004, the year it was withdrawn," says Unz.

~~~
nkoren
That statement, however, doesn't seem to correspond with the CDC's graph,
which shows a much larger rise in death rates occurring in 1993.

(Source article for that graph:
<http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db88.htm> \-- would that they
distributed the actual datasets behind the graphs!)

~~~
ajross
1993 was 19 years ago. Though I'd be curious what that effect was too.

~~~
DanBC
Flu outbreak?

EDIT: URL removed. The link I included appear to be written by an idiot.
Sorry.

> _A CDC review of mortality patterns in 1993 states: “the decline in life
> expectancy likely reflects increases in death rates for chronic diseases
> during the two influenza outbreaks in 1993.” [Morbidity Mortality Weekly 45
> (08), 161-64, March 1, 1996] Some increases in chronic disease (diabetes,
> heart disease, COPD) were “the result of the two influenza epidemics of
> 1993,” said the report. [Monthly Vital Statistics Report, Volume 44, No.
> 7(S), page 9, Feb. 29, 1996]_

------
joejohnson
_"Besides," says Unz laughing, "it shows the stupidity of our political
leaders that they didn't seize upon this great opportunity. They should have
just renamed Vioxx the 'Save Social Security Drug,' and distributed it free in
very large doses to everyone, starting on their 65th birthday. Maybe they
should have even made it mandatory, three times per day. At sufficiently large
levels of national consumption, Vioxx could have almost singlehandedly
eliminated all our serious budget deficit problems. 'Vioxx - The Miracle Anti-
Deficit Drug'."_

That's so morbid. This is the kind of dangerous idea that I'm sure many people
have, but are afraid to voice publicly.

~~~
narrator
A lot of people unfortunately subscribe to the Malthusian ideology that all
problems are caused by overpopulation. In fact, I'm pleasantly surprised when
I meet someone who does not believe that overpopulation is the cause of most
of the world's ills.

~~~
ojbyrne
The mention of Malthus always inspires me to recommend the best book I've read
in the past few years:

[http://www.amazon.com/Farewell-Alms-Brief-Economic-
History/d...](http://www.amazon.com/Farewell-Alms-Brief-Economic-
History/dp/0691121354)

tl;dr: Malthus was right.

~~~
nowarninglabel
Malthus was right about what? He was wrong about nearly every single main
hypothesis he made! What are you saying he got right?

<http://www.economist.com/node/11374623> <http://wmbriggs.com/blog/?p=1837>

Have you actually read Malthus' works?

~~~
ojbyrne
The book I referenced basically says that western civilization is an
aberration caused by a unique set of characteristics, and that the vast
majority of people in the world still live in subsistence conditions. Also
that the west could easily slip back into those conditions.

~~~
mseebach
But what does that have to do with Malthus?

~~~
ojbyrne
The book says that many 3rd world countries are in a "Malthusian trap" - any
increase in income levels results in a population increase that overwhelms the
higher income. Bangladesh is a good example.

------
jeffdavis
There is a big difference between premeditated adulteration of a product
people already use, like milk; and sweeping studies under the rug[1] about a
new product.

If nothing else, a huge amount more people needed to know about the malamine
scandal. How are we shipping so much milk with so few cows? Why am I dumping
this unmarked 50lb bag of powder into the milk?

[1]: After looking at <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vioxx>, I don't see any
allegation that Merck actually withheld raw data from the FDA, or provided it
with false raw data. That's the great thing about a vague analogy like
"sweeping under the rug": you can imply that something happened that didn't,
without actually lying.

~~~
herbivore
In a 2030 version of Hackernews someone will point out that a lot of people
must have known about coordinated efforts to dump fluoride into our water and
everyday products, pasteurize cow's milk to produce a liquid substance that
does not exist in nature and then push it as healthy and essential. That
thousands of people sprayed produce with toxic chemicals. That thousands of
people stood behind a counter and sold people a product that kills half a
million of them every year along with 50,000 of their acquaintances
(cigarettes) and that America's greatest investor pushed Coke and its evil
twin Diet Coke to millions of people who later abused it as part of their path
to obesity and heart attack.

~~~
sp332
The micro-organisms usually present in stagnant fresh water are much more
harmful than low levels of chlorine or fluoride that are added to kill them.
Diet Coke does not promote obesity. Pasteurized cow's milk is fairly
nutritious and is much less likely to harm you than unpasteurized milk
(although the regulations in the USA are too strict IMHO).

~~~
Peaker
I thought fluoride is put in water for its teeth/health benefits.

~~~
46Bit
Indeed, it's supposed to protect teeth of people unable to afford toothpaste.
Whilst it actually just causes cancer. In a similar way to how X-raying
everyone who wants to get on a plane protects us from non-existent terrorists.

~~~
Pwnguinz
Do you have a source for your first statement? Not that I'm implying you are
lying. Certainly it's added as a mineral fortifier, but to protect the teeth
of people unable to afford toothpaste? That _is_ news to me.

~~~
ams6110
Flouride additions to water was started in the 1960s or 1970s as a public
health initiative to fight tooth decay, a significant health problem. It was
not added as a "fortifier" in the same way that vitamin D is commonly added to
milk.

------
wtracy
I would suggest that it's not that American lives are cheaper, it's that old
people's lives are cheaper. (I don't think it should be that way, just that it
is that way.)

That, and the public has a much more visceral reaction to food and beverages
that kill people than medications that kill people.

------
jackfoxy
It's worth calling-out the original article
[http://www.theamericanconservative.com/blog/chinese-
melamine...](http://www.theamericanconservative.com/blog/chinese-melamine-and-
american-vioxx-a-comparison/) (Oh my gosh! A nasty right-wing publication.)
You need a right-wing and a left-wing to fly. Or, to go from the abstract to
the concrete, you should inform yourself from a wide range of sources. Another
notable health scandal (in California) first exposed by the conservative, aka
right wing, press was MTBE. See <http://www.calnews.com/archives/morgan03.htm>
and <http://www.nature.nps.gov/hazardssafety/toxic/mtbe.pdf> (search for
KSFO).

These kinds of scandals are not consequences of the free-market. This is
crony-capitalism. It could just as easily happen under crony-socialism. And as
the MTBE scandal demonstrated, progressive politicians are perfectly capable
of foisting this kind of stuff on the public.

~~~
gruseom
I hesitated over whether to post Unz's original piece or Cockburn's linkbaity
rehash. In the end the rehash won, because I don't think the comparison to
China is the interesting part and because it would likely have sparked a dumb
political argument.

------
leoh
Very interesting. I am very passionate about this topic, and I happen to know
the author of the paper that took on Merck. The statistics in that paper are
exceedingly convincing, since the study was conducted on a controlled set of
patients, some whom received Vioxx, and some whom did not (a control group).
This article points out a very interesting correlation between Vioxx being
taken off the market, and a drop in death rates. Yet proving Vioxx as the
causative agent will be very difficult.

~~~
gruseom
Since you know the author of that paper, could you find out for us what he/she
thinks of this new information about death rates?

Proving causation would be a high bar, of course, if not impossible. But I'm
curious to know what further investigation _could_ be done with this.

------
Duff
I don't agree with the conclusions in this article at all. Also consider that
Celebrex (same drug family) is still on the market. If these drugs were truly
a grim reaper, I don't think Celebrex would still be around.

If anything, this should be seen as a reason to not allow the pervasive
advertising of prescription drugs and aggressive peddling of drug swag - Vioxx
was peddled in the most ostentatious way -- my doctor STILL has Vioxx
clipboards and other junk in his office. I'm sure that this constant brand
awareness and patient nagging helped drive sales (ie. encourage potentially
unnecessary or inappropriate scripts).

The other thing to consider is quality of life. I began suffering by a sudden
onset of what was eventually diagnosed as a degenerated disc in my back -- at
age 25. I went through some intensive physical therapy to try to avoid surgery
(ultimately an unsuccessful effort), and Vioxx was the only thing that allowed
me to function without narcotic pain relief (which I refused to take for more
than a week at a time). It was _that_ good at reducing chronic inflammation.

If I were a 75 year old man with severe, debilitating arthritis having
difficulty walking or living a decent life, I'd happily volunteer to take a
drug like Vioxx to improve the quality of my remaining time here, even knowing
that I was at a higher risk of a heart attack.

~~~
liber8
I've heard this from countless other people as well (including many doctors).
Apparently, it was a _fantastic_ pain drug for many people.

Should Merck have disclosed the increased risk of heart attack and stroke?
Absolutely.

But, part of the problem is the incentives fostered by a bureaucracy like the
FDA. If you know that your new wonderfully effective pain medication increases
the risk of heart attacks from 4% to 6% (or whatever the numbers were), are
you going to disclose that to the FDA, knowing it essentially spells doom for
the billion dollars plus you spent on development?

~~~
jeremyarussell
Wouldn't it be nice if pharmacies could just publish all these finding and let
people decide what to put in our own bodies. I know they argue that we aren't
doctors and therefore shouldn't be forced to make those decisions, but with
the aid of a doctor and true transparent facts I'm pretty sure I would have no
problem going, okay this drug is twice as good at helping with my terrible
pain, and the side effect is that I'm more likely to die of a heart attack.
I'd go, well maybe I don't want to take that risk since I'm at risk already
for a heart attack, or I could go oh I'm young and have no family history of
heart failure, I should be alright the risk is worth the gain.

I can't for the life of me figure out why we can't just do that. Anyone around
care to enlighten me?

~~~
refurb
The majority of patients have ZERO ability to evaluate the risks and benefits
with pharmaceutical intervention. The best example I can provide is patient
compliance (do they take their drug as prescribed?). You'd be hard pressed to
find a rate higher than 50% for any disease (other than the immediately life-
threatening ones).

~~~
jeremyarussell
I don't see how the example you list is relevant to my argument that with
proper disclosure and warning of risks people won't be able to decide if the
risks out-way the gains.

Example I listed: That with full disclosure I can make an educated choice as
to what goes into my body.

Example you listed: That over 50% of people that get prescribed something
decide to take that something the wrong way as opposed to as directed.

They don't seem to be the same. (for one, using a drug in a matter different
then what you've been told to is just gross negligence.)

~~~
refurb
Sorry, I should have been clearer.

My argument is this: If you can't count on people to take a drug that will
drastically reduce their likelihood of dying, how can you trust them to
accurately determine the trade-off between efficacy and safety?

Most patients don't display the ability to figure out risks and trade-offs now
(and relatively simple trade-offs at that). Do you think they'll be able to
figure out what "45% increase in the risk of heart-attacks (41.2 - 48.8%, 95%
confidence interval) in populations who have had a transient ischemic attack
in the last 180 days, excluding those who have diagnosed atherosclerosis"
means to them?

~~~
yew
I think the real problem is that many doctors _also_ lack the capacity to
translate statistical data into a rational evaluation of risk.

Consider the infamous 'mammogram statistics problem' as an example. So what do
you do then, when nobody in the decision-making chain can be trusted to
understand the data?

------
jorleif
I find the value of human life comparison between China and the US somewhat
ludicrous, since societies obviously tend to react much more strongly to
babies with strange acute symptoms (kidney stones), than to elderly people
passing away from typical reasons (heart disease).

~~~
Vadoff
Oh yes, because 6 dead babies have more "value" than half a million dead
elderly. How dare the author make such a comparison!

------
reasonattlm
Half a million Americans died in the last 80 days, most due to aging. Nobody
really paid much attention to that either - or the same number in the
preceding 80 days, and the 80 days prior to that, and so on. One can ponder
what that says about humans.

~~~
josefresco
If we could pull "aging" off the market than we would. Unlike aging, this one
drug can be removed from public consumption. Aging, while some day "curable"
is nowhere near that today.

------
randomfool
Worth noting that Celebrex is very similar to Vioxx (COX-2 inhibitor), and
that researchers do not know if Celebrex has the same issues as Vioxx- they've
avoided repeating this study.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COX-2_inhibitor#Adverse_effects>

~~~
refurb
This isn't true. When the FDA held their hearing about Vioxx, they also
evaluated Celebrex as well.

Vioxx was found to have serious CV risks associated with it at ALL recommended
doses. Celebrex was found to have CV risks associated with only the highest
dose.

The FDA made the call that Vioxx should be gone and that Celebrex can stay
(with an updated label that describes the risks). Same with Naproxen.

------
kristianp
One point no-one else has raised here, is that (as far as I can tell) no
employee of Merck was punished for this. How can Merck the company plead
guilty to a misdemeanor, but no individual be held even partly responsible?
"Under separate criminal proceedings, Merck plead guilty to a federal
misdemeanor charge relating to the marketing of the drug across state lines,
incurring a fine of $321.6 million." From
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rofecoxib> .

It frustrates me that people in big companies have no deterrent from acting
unlawfully. The same thing happened in Wall Street companies in the GFC.

~~~
josephcooney
Contrast that with what happened in China.

------
seanp2k2
Liked the article up until the point at the end where he attributes our
deficit to Medicare and not the wars.

~~~
tsotha
He's right:

[http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/08/iraq_the_war_that_bro...](http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/08/iraq_the_war_that_broke_us_not.html)

------
mikeash
The US death rate is about 2.5 million/year. Seems like somebody would have
noticed a 20% jump due to a single drug. Can this 500,000 deaths/year number
really be close to correct?

Edit: duh, not per year. Oh well, there may still be some little nugget of
validity in there somewhere.

~~~
RandallBrown
it was 100,000 per year for five years.

The article mentions that people _did_ notice when it was dropped down, but
doesn't mention anything about when deaths/year went up.

~~~
gruseom
"We find the largest rise in American mortality rates occurred in 1999, the
year Vioxx was introduced, while the largest drop occurred in 2004, the year
it was withdrawn"

Moreover:

"Vioxx was almost entirely marketed to the elderly, and these substantial
changes in the national death-rate were completely concentrated within the
65-plus population."

And:

"The FDA studies had proven that use of Vioxx led to deaths from
cardiovascular diseases such as heart attacks and strokes, and these were
exactly the factors driving the changes in national mortality rates."

~~~
RandallBrown
yes, but those were noticed years later. As far as I know, no "Mysterious
death spike" articles were published in 2000 because of the extra deaths in
1999.

~~~
Retric
The drug did not gain widespread adoption in a single year.

------
Tloewald
I wonder if the blowout in the rate of healthcare cost expansion under Bush
and the deceleration of late can both be ascribed, at least in part, to the
end of Vioxx.

------
vixen99
The article tells us that lives in the US were valued at $4.85 billion. So
what was the payoff for victims in China that permits the conclusion that
'American lives are quite cheap unlike those in China'?

~~~
bilbo0s
Uhhh...

The fact that NO AMOUNT OF MONEY could save you from prosecution in China
maybe?

In fact, the American Conservative can point to several dead Chinese
'Boardroom types' to make a quite convincing argument that no amount of money
could even save them from execution in China.

~~~
tsotha
Or maybe the people who were executed are the ones who didn't have enough
money.

Anti-corruption campaigns are very common in China. They'll go through and
execute a few hundred people at a time. But they don't make a dent in actual
corruption, because the only people to get executed are the ones without
connections.

------
seanp2k2
Sick that a country that most people would agree doesn't have strong human
rights values /executed/ people for a similar scandal while we don't even slap
their wrists.

Money over positively everything.

~~~
jeffdavis
"a similar scandal"

It was not similar. In my opinion, it's so different that it's not even worth
comparing.

An analogy is not an argument. It only illustrates your argument, if you have
one.

------
jgamman
post hoc ergo proctor hoc

~~~
revolutions
'Correlation does not imply causation, but it does waggle its eyebrows
suggestively and gesture furtively while mouthing "look over there".'

------
12uu45dd
I'm sure their loved ones noticed.

------
rsanchez1
So the American media lied. What's new?

I bet the only people who really cared are those that you would have written
off as "conspiracy theorists" before you came to realize the grisly truth.

------
herbivore
And yet the majority of HN users still trust big pharma that vaccines are
safe. You are being lied to over and over and just never learn.

~~~
tokenadult
I can't speak for the majority of HN users, but I can speak for people who
read serious medical research about vaccine safety and effectiveness (as I am
one such person), and I can say for the record that there is plenty of
evidence that vaccines have consistently resulted in reduced mortality and
morbidity from a variety of diseases. Childhood death is now rare (it was once
commonplace) largely because of improved sanitation and other public health
measures around the globe but also because of vaccines.

[http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/category/vacci...](http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/category/vaccines/)

~~~
Alex3917
The problem is that:

\- The safety standards for getting new drugs approved are incredibly lax. All
you need to show is that it helps the person in some measurable way for the
first six weeks. You don't need to show that the drug is safe or effective for
longterm use, even if the drug is designed for longterm use. And you don't
need to show that the person's overall health and wellbeing is improved, just
the one condition the drug is designed to treat. So if an acne drug causes
liver failure it will still get approved as long as it's effective at treating
acne.

\- The government has been caught many times injecting political dissidents
and others with fake vaccines, most recently in the case of the Bin Laden
family.

\- Most academics believe that the US government was responsible for starting
the AIDS epidemic by running vaccination programs in Africa. [1] [2]

\- The government has repeatedly shown that they don't take evidence of safety
and quality problems seriously at best, and actively prosecute whistleblowers
at worst.

[1] [http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/health/new-
health/health...](http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/health/new-
health/health-news/canadian-researcher-traces-aids-to-single-bush-hunter-
from-1921/article2210046/)

[2] [http://www.amazon.com/The-River-Journey-Source-
AIDS/dp/03163...](http://www.amazon.com/The-River-Journey-Source-
AIDS/dp/0316372617)

~~~
EvilTerran
_"So if an acne drug causes liver failure it will still get approved as long
as it's effective at treating acne."_

Er, no.

[http://www.fda.gov/Drugs/DevelopmentApprovalProcess/HowDrugs...](http://www.fda.gov/Drugs/DevelopmentApprovalProcess/HowDrugsareDevelopedandApproved/ApprovalApplications/NewDrugApplicationNDA/default.htm)

"The goals of the New Drug Application are to provide enough information to
permit FDA reviewer to reach the following key decisions: * Whether the drug
is safe and effective in its proposed use(s), and _whether the benefits of the
drug outweigh the risks._ "

Also
[http://www.fda.gov/drugs/resourcesforyou/consumers/ucm143534...](http://www.fda.gov/drugs/resourcesforyou/consumers/ucm143534.htm)
: "It's the clinical trials that take so long -- usually several years". I'm
afraid I can't find any actual figures for the typical length of the clinical
trials at present.

...

 _"Most academics believe..."_

Absolute rubbish.

For one thing, you've cited only one academic (as "the River" is by a
journalist, not a scientist), and he attributed it to "well-meaning _European
doctors and nurses_ "... so, er, not the US, and not the government.

But, more importantly, there's plenty more academics who think that theory is
completely wrong:

<https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11405925>

<https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11405926>

<https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15103367>

~~~
Alex3917
Academic is not a synonym for scientist. Historians are academics, but they're
not scientists. Journalists may or may not be academics, but I think it's
pretty clear that he was acting as an academic in writing that book.

~~~
EvilTerran
"But, _more importantly_ , there's plenty more academics who think that theory
is completely wrong: [cite] [cite] [cite]"

Hmm?

~~~
Alex3917
If you have access to those papers I'd be curious to check them out, just send
me an email.

~~~
EvilTerran
Two of those pages I provided have links titled "Free PMC Article". They lead
to full-text PDFs:

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1088471/pdf/TB0...](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1088471/pdf/TB010815.pdf)

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1088472/pdf/TB0...](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1088472/pdf/TB010825.pdf)

The other, I Googled the title -- the fourth result (after some pages on
nature.com) had a PDF of that one:

<http://tree.bio.ed.ac.uk/publications/246/>

~~~
Alex3917
Interesting. I haven't read either of the original books so it's difficult for
me to evaluate the quality of these papers. It's worth noting though that
these papers are only the beginning of a long back and forth, which you can
find on Hooper's website:

<http://www.aidsorigins.com/content/blogcategory/29/51/>

<http://www.aidsorigins.com/content/blogcategory/28/50/>

Also, while clinical trials usually do take 10 years or so, the actual
patients don't necessarily receive the drug for more than a few weeks. The
reason it takes so long is because you need to do preclinical research, secure
patents, secure funding, get IRB and FDA approval for each study, design the
methodology and acquire the resources you need, recruit hundreds or thousands
of volunteers, wait for the drugs to get manufactured, run all the studies in
each phase, analyze the data, get FDA approval to transition from phase I to
phase II and from phase II to phase III, then wait for actual approval, etc.

~~~
EvilTerran
I see.

Regardless, I maintain it's very far from the case that "most academics
believe...". That's all.

Thanks for keeping this civil. Disagreement on HN remains a refreshing
experience. :)

