Do you know how they determine alleged side effects of a medication?
When they do the clinical trials, the participants have to report every potentially averse effect they experience during the study. They get a headache, they have to report it. Bit of nausea, they have to report it. So on, and so forth. It's CORRELATION.
Anything that occurs in the study group more than once becomes part of the list of potential side effects, without any causal relationship actually being identified. You see a depression medicine commercial that says broken bones may be a side effect? Study members become friends, hang out in during the study, get into a car accident and both suffer broken bones. And all of a sudden it's a potential side effect of the medicine. Have a study where one participant comes into the facility with the flu and spreads it to others, and all of a sudden the flu is a possible side effect for this new brand of a cholesterol medicine that has been around for 100 years.
Some studies involve people staying in a facility for several days at a time. They feed the participants three meals at scheduled times and everyone gets the exact same thing, and they have to eat the whole thing. But sometimes the food sucks and gives everyone indigestion. All of a sudden, heartburn becomes a side effect of a glaucoma medication administered via eye drop.
