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2. ADHD

Neurologist Fred Bauman has made a career of confronting pharmaceutical companies. In his book, The ADHD Fraud: How Psychiatry Makes "Patients" Out of Normal Children, he slams the entire industry for inventing diseases "over cigars and drinks." He says that ADHD is a set of behavioral symptoms that can be changed through counseling and behavior modification, rather than a physical brain disease that must be treated through drugs such as Ritalin.

Bauman adds that the six million children who are currently taking pills for ADHD represent a "catastrophe" manufactured by Big Pharma to make a buck off parents trying to zombify their kids. While Bauman has widely praised for his opinions and was even asked to share them with Congress, many in the pharmaceutical industry claim that Bauman's findings are based on faulty research.

3. Biased Clinical Trial Results

In 2010, The Annals of Internal Medicine published a report indicating that clinical trial reports for new drugs were often biased. Based on data published on ClinicalTrials.gov, the report showed that trials funded by government money favored the new drug 50% of the time; trials by non-government organizations without industry ties favored the new drug 61% of the time, and industry-sponsored trials favored the new drug a whopping 85% of the time.

Dr. Florence T. Bourgeois, the leader of the report, was quick to clarify: "We are not saying that industry is necessarily deliberately biasing the result." Instead, she and her colleagues were searching for an unknown or unconscious "bias in the way a trial is designed and conducted based on the funding source." Some of these biases might include only publishing studies late in the development process when the drug is more likely to be successful, administering a higher dose of the drug than would be prescribed when it went to market, or selecting patients who are more likely than average to respond to the treatment. In this way, so the reasoning goes, industry-sponsored clinical trials are more likely to rule in favor of new (and expensive) pharmaceutical treatments.

4. "Speedy" Weight Loss Drugs

You've been told over and over again that the only way to lose weight and keep it off is to exercise and eat right. However, this process is difficult and can take months or years. Those looking for a quick fix for their body image often turn to diet pills.

Diet pills have been around since the 1930s and often produce mixed results. For instance, in the 1950s and 60s, some doctors prescribed weight loss pills that were, in essence, legal speed. Both speed and these diet pills were composed primarily of amphetamines, a substance that boosts the metabolism and suppresses the appetite. Unfortunately, amphetamines can increase blood pressure and heart rate – they are also highly addictive.