Doctors, drugmakers, regulators and lobbyists pushed high doses of medications that may have been ineffective or at times even lethal on millions of anemic patients over two decades, making upward of $8 billion a year for two companies. “How did this happen?” asks Peter Whoriskey of The Washington Post.

Whoriskey’s article tells a story of how economic incentives drive groups with common financial interests to cooperate spontaneously and possibly without malice in ways that harm large numbers of Americans who are hurt physically (sometimes killed) and financially by professionals whom the victims believed they should have been able to trust.

— Posted by Alexander Reed Kelly.