Burden-of-Proof Games

Suppose that a drug company is trying to get approval for a new pain medication that might have some serious negative side effects. How can the company keep regulators from finding any? Even if you have no training in statistics it is easy to understand that the sure-fire strategy is to focus attention on side effects that are rare. The smaller the number of events, the easier it is to dismiss the few that arise as chance outcomes. This same strategy for avoiding a discovery is being used now by people who want to keep us from finding that the protection from vaccines diminishes over time.