A word of caution...

...is the message of this multimedia presentation from the people at Wired. It's a gallery of "retired drugs", or drugs gone bad, or simply, "did you make enough money of these medicines to salve your shredded soul?"

Disclaimer: I would add that I am not as cynical about new drug development as I come across in this post. Hey, I'm a doc, I welcome better therapeutic options over not-effective-but-it's-the-best-we-have medicines. But these examples warn against the let's-go-ahead-because-these-are-nameless-fears attitude that appears to only be driven by greed and the bottomline. Last's principle of biomedical ethics - beneficence ("doing good"), non-malfeasance (avoidance of harm), autonomy (integrity) and Justice/Equity (most to whom who needs it the most)  - do not figure in this equation.

Ah, rant ends. Back to our normal programming...