patrick.net

Grad students and postdocs are often treated as the slave labour of tenured faculty. The success of the latter is widely measured by the size of their research groups, while their main occupation is to keep applying for research funding and to travel the conference circuit (circus). The grant review process is subjective and depends critically on networking.

Many universities accept more grad students than they intend to graduate because they need teaching assistants to run the first year classes and labs. The numbers are reduced at the qualifying exams.

(what I wrote above applies to physics)

curious2 says

Consider as a starting example Vytorin, widely advertised on TV; in clinical studies, "Vytorin failed to show much effect."

As is typical for drug trials that show failure, publication was delayed for years compared to trials that show "success", leaving the drugs on the market to make money, inflict side effects, and confer no benefit:

Newsweek: "Why Almost Everything You Hear About Medicine Is Wrong"

The literature imbalance can also result from the use of "rescue countries," i.e. if trials in America show a drug doesn't work, PhRMA can throw cash at doctors in dirt-poor "rescue countries" to produce "studies" showing "success":

Vanity Fair: "Deadly Medicine"

This is part of why at least 30% of American medical spending consists of waste, fraud, and abuse. I'd say those categories account for more than 50% of total medical spending.

If you can’t hire white coat sociopathic shills to run apocryphal studies promoting addictive drugs, foods or medicines, than freedom has no meaning.

Pretty easy formula. If you oppose it, it causes weight gain, cancer, heart disease or Alzheimer’s. If you want to sell it, it causes weight loss, prevents cancer, prevents heart disease and stops Alzheimer’s dead in its tracks.

You too can be an enterprise white coat shill or food and drug lobbyist!