While it's easy to throw numbers around, in relation to the hundreds of thousands who die from taking useless, dangerous drugs, it's important to be reminded of the individual tragedies that can occur when patients rely too often on a drug to address an underlying health challenge.
Such is the case of Ryan Wilson, an aspiring plumber whose toes and fingertips were amputated after a London drug trial for the experimental TGN1412 went horribly wrong.
Of the six men who were injected with TGN1412 last spring were hospitalized, Wilson's health suffered the most: He remained in a coma for three weeks and several of his vital organs failed at some point. The best outcome Wilson could hope for someday: Walking without crutches or pain, a simple thing most us take for granted.
The tragedy of this 20-year-old's story illustrates why you should normally always want to seek a safer, natural option first. How many times has a supplement or natural therapy ever caused the type of damage that this young man has to go through for the rest of his life?
BBC News December 7, 2006