experts say the federal database contains only a small fraction of the actual adverse events a medicine may cause: most doctors fail to properly report. Therefore, scientists say, each single adverse event that does get reported represents 1,000 to 100,000 times more that go unreported. This also explains why a mere handful of deaths that are officially connected to a drug are enough to sound alarm bells. Because 12 known serious injuries imply there could really be 12,000 to 1,200,000.