Author: Ben Goldacre Publisher: Macmillan ISBN: 0865478066 Category : Business & Economics Languages : en Pages : 479
Book Description
Originally published in 2012, revised edition published in 2013, by Fourth Estate, Great Britain; Published in the United States in 2012, revised edition also, by Faber and Faber, Inc.
Author: Ben Goldacre Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux ISBN: 0374710171 Category : Business & Economics Languages : en Pages : 449
Book Description
We like to imagine that medicine is based on evidence and the results of fair testing and clinical trials. In reality, those tests and trials are often profoundly flawed. We like to imagine that doctors who write prescriptions for everything from antidepressants to cancer drugs to heart medication are familiar with the research literature about a drug, when in reality much of the research is hidden from them by drug companies. We like to imagine that doctors are impartially educated, when in reality much of their education is funded by the pharmaceutical industry. We like to imagine that regulators have some code of ethics and let only effective drugs onto the market, when in reality they approve useless drugs, with data on side effects casually withheld from doctors and patients. All these problems have been shielded from public scrutiny because they're too complex to capture in a sound bite. But Ben Goldacre shows that the true scale of this murderous disaster fully reveals itself only when the details are untangled. He believes we should all be able to understand precisely how data manipulation works and how research misconduct in the medical industry affects us on a global scale. With Goldacre's characteristic flair and a forensic attention to detail, Bad Pharma reveals a shockingly broken system and calls for regulation. This is the pharmaceutical industry as it has never been seen before.
Author: Jacky Law Publisher: Robinson ISBN: Category : Business & Economics Languages : en Pages : 280
Book Description
Pharmaceutical medicine is very, very big business. The top ten players earned more than $200 billion in 2003. One drug, Pfizer's cholesterol pill Lipitor, had sales of more than $9 billion. This kind of money buys an awful lot of friends among doctors and politicians. Most of those involved in the formulation of public health policy seems happy with the present system. The trouble is that the public is starting to have doubts. There is a growing sense that the vast profits of drug companies and their control of the research agenda might not be that good for our health. Jacky Law takes the reader on a journey through the pharmaceutical business and shows how the public is quite right to be concerned about conventional medicine, as it has developed since the late 1970s. She tells a story of spectacular regulatory failure, phenomenally high prices, betrayal of the public interest and a growing awareness among ordinary people that things could be very different. Sophisticated marketing and public relations, not scientific excellence, have helped corporations to preside unchallenged over matters of life and death. It is time, Law argues, for us to take responsibility for our health, not as passive consumers of pharmaceutical medicine, but as informed citizens.
Author: Peter Gotzsche Publisher: CRC Press ISBN: 1908911123 Category : Medical Languages : en Pages : 251
Book Description
PRESCRIPTION DRUGS ARE THE THIRD LEADING CAUSE OF DEATH AFTER HEART DISEASE AND CANCER. In his latest ground-breaking book, Peter C Gotzsche exposes the pharmaceutical industries and their charade of fraudulent behaviour, both in research and marketing where the morally repugnant disregard for human lives is the norm. He convincingly draws close co
Author: Gerald Posner Publisher: Simon and Schuster ISBN: 1501152041 Category : Business & Economics Languages : en Pages : 816
Book Description
Award-winning journalist and New York Times bestselling author Gerald Posner reveals the heroes and villains of the trillion-dollar-a-year pharmaceutical industry and delivers “a withering and encyclopedic indictment of a drug industry that often seems to prioritize profits over patients (The New York Times Book Review). Pharmaceutical breakthroughs such as antibiotics and vaccines rank among some of the greatest advancements in human history. Yet exorbitant prices for life-saving drugs, safety recalls affecting tens of millions of Americans, and soaring rates of addiction and overdose on prescription opioids have caused many to lose faith in drug companies. Now, Americans are demanding a national reckoning with a monolithic industry. “Gerald’s dogged reporting, sets Pharma apart from all books on this subject” (The Washington Standard) as we are introduced to brilliant scientists, incorruptible government regulators, and brave whistleblowers facing off against company executives often blinded by greed. A business that profits from treating ills can create far deadlier problems than it cures. Addictive products are part of the industry’s DNA, from the days when corner drugstores sold morphine, heroin, and cocaine, to the past two decades of dangerously overprescribed opioids. Pharma also uncovers the real story of the Sacklers, the family that became one of America’s wealthiest from the success of OxyContin, their blockbuster narcotic painkiller at the center of the opioid crisis. Relying on thousands of pages of government and corporate archives, dozens of hours of interviews with insiders, and previously classified FBI files, Posner exposes the secrets of the Sacklers’ rise to power—revelations that have long been buried under a byzantine web of interlocking companies with ever-changing names and hidden owners. The unexpected twists and turns of the Sackler family saga are told against the startling chronicle of a powerful industry that sits at the intersection of public health and profits. “Explosively, even addictively, readable” (Booklist, starred review), Pharma reveals how and why American drug companies have put earnings ahead of patients.
Author: Mickey C. Smith Publisher: CRC Press ISBN: 1000263657 Category : Business & Economics Languages : en Pages : 433
Book Description
Pharmaceuticals constitute a relatively small share of the total Health Care expenditure in most developed economies, and yet they play a critical role in the ongoing debate over how best to advance, improve, and afford Health Care. Despite this, and perhaps because of this, the industry has had, for many years, an outsized claim to fame and controversy, praise and criticisms, and support and condemnation. Unfortunately, many participants in the debate do not fully understand the complexities of the industry and its role in the overall Health Care system. The analytical tools of economics provide a strong foundation for a better understanding of the dynamics of the pharmaceutical industry, its contribution to Health and Health Care, and its dual and often conflicting priorities of affordability and innovation, as well as the various Private and Public Policy initiatives directed at the sector. Everyone is affected by Big Pharma and the products they produce. At the Drug store, the physician’s office, in front of the television, in everyday conversations, Drugs are a part of our lives. Society shapes our values toward Drugs and Drugs shape society. ("The Pill" and minor tranquilizers are good examples.) And, of course, the way Congress deliberates and Big Pharma responds has a huge impact on how Drugs affect our lives. This book is well-researched on the subject of the pharmaceutical industry, its struggles with Government, and its relationship to the consumer from the early twentieth century until the present. The Dynamic Tension between the three participants – Government, Big Pharma, and the People – is described and explained to lead to an understanding of the controversies that rage today. The author describes how the Government, its many investigatory efforts, and the ultimate legislative results affect the industry and the consequences of their activities are explored in light of their effects on other players, including the patients and consumers who rely on both Government and Big Pharma for their well-being and who find sometimes unexpected consequences while giving special attention to the attitudes, beliefs, and misadventures of less-than-optimal Drug use. Stakeholders are identified with physicians as a major focus, as well as describing the significance of prescriptions as social objects and the processes by which physicians make choices on behalf of their patients. The author ties it all together with how Big Pharma affects and is affected by each of these groups. The author utilizes his 50-plus years’ experience as an academic, practicing pharmacist, and Big Pharma employee to describe the scope of the pharmaceutical industry and how it affects us on a daily basis, concluding with an inside look at Big Pharma and how regulations, marketing, and the press have affected their business, both good and bad.
Author: Marcia Angell Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks ISBN: 0375760946 Category : Business & Economics Languages : en Pages : 354
Book Description
During her two decades at The New England Journal of Medicine, Dr. Marcia Angell had a front-row seat on the appalling spectacle of the pharmaceutical industry. She watched drug companies stray from their original mission of discovering and manufacturing useful drugs and instead become vast marketing machines with unprecedented control over their own fortunes. She saw them gain nearly limitless influence over medical research, education, and how doctors do their jobs. She sympathized as the American public, particularly the elderly, struggled and increasingly failed to meet spiraling prescription drug prices. Now, in this bold, hard-hitting new book, Dr. Angell exposes the shocking truth of what the pharmaceutical industry has become–and argues for essential, long-overdue change. Currently Americans spend a staggering $200 billion each year on prescription drugs. As Dr. Angell powerfully demonstrates, claims that high drug prices are necessary to fund research and development are unfounded: The truth is that drug companies funnel the bulk of their resources into the marketing of products of dubious benefit. Meanwhile, as profits soar, the companies brazenly use their wealth and power to push their agenda through Congress, the FDA, and academic medical centers. Zeroing in on hugely successful drugs like AZT (the first drug to treat HIV/AIDS), Taxol (the best-selling cancer drug in history), and the blockbuster allergy drug Claritin, Dr. Angell demonstrates exactly how new products are brought to market. Drug companies, she shows, routinely rely on publicly funded institutions for their basic research; they rig clinical trials to make their products look better than they are; and they use their legions of lawyers to stretch out government-granted exclusive marketing rights for years. They also flood the market with copycat drugs that cost a lot more than the drugs they mimic but are no more effective. The American pharmaceutical industry needs to be saved, mainly from itself, and Dr. Angell proposes a program of vital reforms, which includes restoring impartiality to clinical research and severing the ties between drug companies and medical education. Written with fierce passion and substantiated with in-depth research, The Truth About the Drug Companies is a searing indictment of an industry that has spun out of control.
Author: John Abramson Publisher: HarperCollins ISBN: 1328956989 Category : Health & Fitness Languages : en Pages : 336
Book Description
The inside story of how Big Pharma’s relentless pursuit of ever-higher profits corrupts medical knowledge—misleading doctors, misdirecting American health care, and harming our health. The United States spends an excess $1.5 trillion annually on health care compared to other wealthy countries—yet the amount of time that Americans live in good health ranks a lowly 68th in the world. At the heart of the problem is Big Pharma, which funds most clinical trials and therefore controls the research agenda, withholds the real data from those trials as corporate secrets, and shapes most of the information relied upon by health care professionals. In this no-holds-barred exposé, Dr. John Abramson—one of the foremost experts on the drug industry’s deceptive tactics—combines patient stories with what he learned during many years of serving as an expert in national drug litigation to reveal the tangled web of financial interests at the heart of the dysfunction in our health-care system. For example, one of pharma’s best-kept secrets is that the peer reviewers charged with ensuring the accuracy and completeness of the clinical trial reports published in medical journals do not even have access to complete data and must rely on manufacturer-influenced summaries. Likewise for the experts who write the clinical practice guidelines that define our standards of care. The result of years of research and privileged access to the inner workings of the U.S. medical-industrial complex, Sickening shines a light on the dark underbelly of American health care—and presents a path toward genuine reform.
Author: Jerome P. Kassirer M.D. Publisher: Oxford University Press ISBN: 0198039298 Category : Medical Languages : en Pages : 272
Book Description
We all know that doctors accept gifts from drug companies, ranging from pens and coffee mugs to free vacations at luxurious resorts. But as the former Editor-in-Chief of The New England Journal of Medicine reveals in this shocking expose, these innocuous-seeming gifts are just the tip of an iceberg that is distorting the practice of medicine and jeopardizing the health of millions of Americans today. In On the Take, Dr. Jerome Kassirer offers an unsettling look at the pervasive payoffs that physicians take from big drug companies and other medical suppliers, arguing that the billion-dollar onslaught of industry money has deflected many physicians' moral compasses and directly impacted the everyday care we receive from the doctors and institutions we trust most. Underscored by countless chilling untold stories, the book illuminates the financial connections between the wealthy companies that make drugs and the doctors who prescribe them. Kassirer details the shocking extent of these financial enticements and explains how they encourage bias, promote dangerously misleading medical information, raise the cost of medical care, and breed distrust. Among the questionable practices he describes are: the disturbing number of senior academic physicians who have financial arrangements with drug companies; the unregulated "front" organizations that advocate certain drugs; the creation of biased medical education materials by the drug companies themselves; and the use of financially conflicted physicians to write clinical practice guidelines or to testify before the FDA in support of a particular drug. A brilliant diagnosis of an epidemic of greed, On the Take offers insight into how we can cure the medical profession and restore our trust in doctors and hospitals.
Author: John L. LaMattina Publisher: John Wiley & Sons ISBN: 1118158962 Category : Medical Languages : en Pages : 186
Book Description
This book answers the questions about the process and costs of pharmaceutical R & D in a compelling narrative focused on the discovery and development of important new medicines. It gives an insider's account of the pharmaceutical industry drug discovery process, the very real costs of misperceptions about the industry, the high stakes--both economic and scientific--of developing drugs, the triumphs that come when new compounds reach the market and save lives, and the despair that follows when new compounds fail. In the book, John LaMattina, former president of Pfizer Global Research and Development, weaves themes critical to a vital drug discovery environment in the context. This is a story that Dr. LaMattina is uniquely qualified to tell.
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Author: Ben Goldacre
Author: Ben Goldacre
Author: Jacky Law
Author: Peter Gotzsche
Author: Gerald Posner
Author: Mickey C. Smith
Author: Marcia Angell
Author: John Abramson
Author: Jerome P. Kassirer M.D.
Author: John L. LaMattina