Bloomberg has a nice piece documenting a number of instances in which drug companies have promoted their drugs for uses not approved by the Food and Drug Administration and it harmed or killed patients. The part missing from this discussion is any discussion of the perverse incentives that patent monopolies create for promoting off-label uses. This is a strong argument for using alternative methods for financing research. By contrast, the article indicates that we have to hope that: “that drug companies actually honor the promises they keep making.”
–Dean Baker
