The pharmaceutical industry is deeply corrupt. The problem is systemic: the companies value profit over patients, when it needs to be the other way around.
The problem has worsened over the last few decades, as trials have moved from university settings to for-profit clinical research shops. These organizations are highly commercial and, worse, exploitative, conducting trials in low-cost countries where they can pay volunteers next to nothing.
Very often, the results of these trials are suppressed when they aren’t positive. (A whopping 90 percent of the trials that get published are funded by Big Pharma.) The ethical nightmare continues after trials, when drugs go to regulators. In the US, this process is largely about politics and profit over safety and health.
A huge cultural shift is needed, stat. Learn more about the state of the industry and how it should be reformed in our Instaread on Bad Pharma.
