In medicine, there is almost no such thing as a free lunch. About all drugs or interventions will have side effects.
Good studies, rigorous studies and a regulatory process will ensure that the approved benefits of the drug clearly outweigh any potential harm. But sometimes, researchers (and patients) will uncover side effects that were overlooked during the consent process. Sometimes, rarely, a drug maker is revealed to have buried powerful information about the harms of drugs to the public or to create a product that doesn’t work at all as intended. And when that happens, bad or ineffective treatment can attract a lot of shame.
There has been no shortage of pharmaceutical scandals over the years, but to keep things short, let’s just focus on some of the biggest ones in this part of the century.
1. Johnson & Johnson’s talcum powder products
For decades, people have been unsuccessfully suing J&J over its consumer products that contain talc, especially baby powder, claiming the products have affected their game.
However, in 2018, an explosive report from Reuters found that the company had hidden evidence that the talc it used may sometimes contain detectable levels of asbestos, a known carcinogen. The report helped spark a new wave of lawsuits and increase public mistrust in baby products. In the years since then, the company has repeatedly lost civil suits over its talc products, amounting to millions, and its appeals have continued to fail, even before the Supreme Court.
Although J & J has maintained that its products are safe, this company finally removed TALC from all its powder products (instead of this year and failed to reduce the fraud case, and this year continued to lose its cancer courts.
Interestingly enough, although asbestos is known to cause cancer, past research has not found a clear link between total talc (including the conflict that exists under the risk caused by talcum powk of products. The American Cancercicent Society says that if talc can increase a person’s risk of ovarian cancer (the primary type of cancer linked to talc), “the total increase is likely to be very small” for each woman. World Health Organization stated that asbestos-containing talc-talc should be considered carcinogenic, while regular talc is “probably carcinogenic.”
2. Biogen and the Alzheimer’s drug that didn’t exist
In June 2021, the FDA approved ADUHELMM for the Alzheimer’s antihelminth of Alaimer. At first glance, the approval should have been good news: the first drug of its kind, and one that aims to target the main driver of the degenerative disorder, beta amyloid. But honestly, there was anything but you.
In an unusual move at the time, the FDA confronted the recommendations of its expert extension panel, which voted against approval. Outside experts rightly note that the data supporting the drug’s effectiveness has been largely compiled. The FDA also granted approval for accelerated approval of Aduhelm, a special category that requires rigorous evidence. Media Outlet News later discovered an unusually friendly relationship between top biogen employees and FDA officials, who informed DRM’s investigation into the matter. And to add insult to injury, at the beginning biogen set the price of Aduhelm at $ 56,000 per year – the cost is high enough to destroy the pockets of patients and Medicare if the drug is used early in the use of pre-American Americans.
Soon some doctors rebelled against acceptance, refusing to turn away their patients, while Medicare decided to limit its coverage of the drug. Biogen finally tried to make Aduhelm, after years of poor sales, and pulled the drug from the market in early 2024.
This saga has a happy ending, at least. There have been other similar drugs developed and approved in recent years, and unlike nodulos, these drugs appear to be effective, if modest, in treating the condition.
3. Purdue Pharma and Oxecontin
Purdue Pharma has perhaps been the most famous poster child for the opioid crisis.
Its Blockbuster drugs, Oxecontin, helped fuel the growing prices of the Opioid Matruc Direg following its release to addicts of its products, and although there are drivers of illegal problems to prescribe their drugs, and open an eye to the diversion of these drugs from pharmacies to the black market.
Following the debris of civil lawsuits and the Oxecontin regime, Purdue Pharma closed its doors, and the courts agreed to be $ 6 billion by $ 6 billion by $ 6 billion by 2023. And while the situation has begun to improve as of late, almost as many Americans are still dying from an Opioid overdose as of last year.
4. Martin Shkreli’s Price Surge
Sometimes the scandals aren’t about the drugs themselves, but what they’re sold on.
In 2015, Martin Shkreli became the first public enemy when his company, extracting chemicals, bought daraprim anti-parasitic and anti-50 and raised the price tag of $ 13.50 per pill. Shkreli’s unrepentant attitude earned his many critics the nickname “Pharma Bro.”
Fair enough, his first fall had nothing to do with daraprim. Soon after, New York prosecutors charged Shkreli with securities fraud, and in 2017, he was found guilty and sentenced to seven years in state prison.
Although Shkreli was released in early 2022, the management of his company Draprim later came back to haunt him. In 2020, the FTC and others sued the company, now called Vyera Pharmaceuticals after Shkreli’s arrest, alleging it engaged in an “anticompetitive scheme” to maintain its view of the drug. The company reached a settlement with the FTC a year later, and the legal battle eventually required Shkreli to pay a $64 million fine and stay away from the pharmaceutical industry. In 2023, Vyera declared bankruptcy and sold the rights to Daraprim. Last year, the US Supreme Court struck down Shkreli’s attempt to vacate his restraining order.
Don’t feel too bad for Shkreli, though. Since his release from prison, he has been busy trying to surf crypto and ainoff for webmd.
5. Abbott’s dirty baby formula
In early 2022, the FDA warned families to stay away from powdered baby formulas produced by the Abbott Numba company. The products, it turns out, were contaminated with Cronobacter bacteria.
Several children were exposed at the hospital, and two infants who had consumed the products later died. Abbott issued a widespread recall of its products and closed its formula manufacturing facility in Sturgis, Michigan. The FDA’s investigation concluded that Abbott failed to maintain sanitary conditions and that the facility had at least two recent cases of Cronobacter Cronompactination dating back to 2019.
It could take four months for the Sturgis Sturgis plant to reopen, following an agreement with the FDA to tighten its safety practices, the length of which helped contribute to a nationwide formula shortage. Lawyers on both sides also criticized the FDA for a delayed response to the problem, because the agency began to be caught in the wind of possible problems from September 2021.
Although there have been no similar recalls or predicted outbreaks since, said a comprehensive report of the propubli in April 2025 and spoke with employees who say that Sturgis continues to be very safe and clean from this day to this day. An employee reported their findings to the FDA, but it’s unclear whether the new Trump administration will act.
6. Elizabeth Holmes and Reranos
Elizabeth Holmes founded this medical company in 2003. It focuses on the development of a tool that aims to make blood tests easier than ever. With just a few drops of blood from one pointed finger, Holmes claimed, his company’s device “Edison” can accurately see health conditions. In the mid-2010s, Holmes’ marketing at Theranos had allowed him to become the darling of the biotech world: a young entrepreneur, who made young entrepreneurs, who made entrepreneurs after Steve Jobs, who was worth $5 billion.
The problem was, since the world had finally been discovered, it was all based on a lie. Beginning in late 2015, the Wall Street Journal’s John Carreyrou revealed the fraudulent practices of Holmes and Theranos. Although Holmes had struck a partnership with the retail chain Walgreens in 2013 to provide Edison service to its customers, Edison will never fail to do what Holmes says is possible. And finally, the company privately turned to using other commercially available machines to perform most of its blood testing services.
The Holmes hoax didn’t just mislead investors; Several people reported that false test results provided by Theranos made them fear that they had medical conditions that they did not actually have, such as HIV, or harmed their health.
Holmes was convicted of defrauding investors and other crimes over Theranos in 2022 and was sentenced to two years in prison (later reduced to two years), Sunny, “Sunny” Balani was sentenced to almost 13 years the following month. Starting this year, he made his return to social media (with
