White Lies

Matthew Herper is an interesting pundit. He writes for "Forbes", but doesn't routinely pander to corporations. Here's the first sentence from a new piece:

Seven times between August 11, 2008, and June 27, 2013, the Food and Drug Administration declined to approve a new medicine, in part, because patients were more likely to die when taking the drug than in a control group. Yet only one of those companies told investors -- and the public -- about that concern.

Mind, he didn't do much digging here. He's just reporting on a study. But, still, he could have ignored it. FDA is something of a tar baby; drug companies routinely complain that the agency impedes them from getting wonder drugs on the market, while PIRGs and doctors and patient advocates oft times complain that FDA bends over routinely. The Namenda fiasco is archetypal.

One might wonder which whiz-kid figured out that by simply changing the dosage, the company could increase profit at virtually no expense? The truth about quant.