I am interested in this guy Dr. John Virapen
and his book Side Effects: Death. Confessions of a Pharma-Insider.
IMHO it is a mindless conspiracy theory and Dr. Virapen is simply trying to get rich. I wanted to support my opinion in an discussion with a friend and I was surprised he is quite unknown on Google, that is why I came to Skeptics. But:
What should I ask for? How should I ask so that I help create quality resource about Dr. Virapen an his conspiracy theory?
Thanks
Here are some random bits of advice:
I am sure the book is full of many, many claims. (If it wasn't, it would be a tweet, not a book.) However, the Q&A format isn't really conducive to taking on lots of different claims at once. Have a look and pick one (or at worst, two) of the claims. If you want to ask about more, raise separate questions.
Pick a claim that is actually meaningful - particularly, it should be a testable claim. For example, the blurb says:
Whether you know it or not, the pharmaceutical industry (lovingly referred to as Big Pharma) controls many facets of your life – making the world a “medicine cult.”
This, by itself, is a poor claim. If one person said it was true, and another said it was false, by what measure could we tell who is right? I can't see one off the top of my head. If the world would look exactly the same, whether the claim is true or false, it is not interesting and out-of-scope.
Type in the claim (with a little bit of context, if required), so we know, word-for-word what has been said. Tell us where we can find it in the book (or even better, online), if we want to follow up.
Make sure you keep an open mind. The question should be written in a way that invites evidence from "either side". Don't only ask for evidence disproving the claims.
Dr Virapen's intentions (i.e. whether he is only motivated by getting rich or whether he is being altruistic, or somewhere in between) are impossible to prove either way, and are therefore off-topic.
