Corporate greed and systematic political failure has brought healthcare to its knees

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/nov/01/drugs-pharma-doctors-patients
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According to Peter Gøtzsche, professor of research design and analysis at the University of Copenhagen, prescription drugs are the third most common cause of death after heart disease and cancer. In an analysis published in the BMJ, he estimated that every year psychiatric drugs, including anti–depressants and dementia drugs, are responsible for half-a-million deaths in those aged over 65.

Between 2007 and 2012, the majority of the largest 10 pharmaceutical companies all paid considerable fines for various misdemeanours that included marketing drugs for off-label uses, misrepresentation of research results and hiding data on harms. But as long as these criminal acts generate profit, they will continue unabated.

Medical journals and the media can also be manipulated to serve not only as marketing vehicles for the industry, but also be complicit in silencing those who call for more independent scrutiny of scientific data.

Earlier this year, the editor of the Lancet, Richard Horton, wrote that possibly half of the published medical literature may simply be untrue and that science had “taken a turn towards darkness”.