The Risks We Accept

In a chapter about the Vioxx fiasco -- when Merck lied about the drug's coronary risk -- Michael Specter writes in Denialism:

"People never measure the risk of keeping the drug off the market, though, and that is the problem. If you applied FDA phase I or II or III criteria--all required for drug approval--to driving an automobile in nearly any American city, nobody would be allowed to enter one. When we compare the risk of taking Vioxx to the risk of getting behind the wheel of a car, it's not all clear which is more dangerous."

It's interesting to compare the risks we accept versus the ones we won't.