Making them squirm

A few months ago I received a letter from a pharmaceutical company that presented “evidence” for the cost effectiveness of a popular antibiotic.

I'll spare the company's blushes, but let's just call it drug X and say the stuff is heavily advertised in the freebies, comes in a blister pack as two tone brightly coloured capsules, and if you bought a course of it privately you'd probably need to pay with a credit card. The letter said that tests in volunteers had …