Book Description
Using the examples of Vioxx, Celebrex, cholesterol-lowering statin drugs, and anti-depressants,
Overdo$ed America shows that at the heart of the current crisis in American medicine lies the commercialization of medical knowledge itself.
Drawing on his background in statistics, epidemiology, and health policy,
John Abramson, M.D., an award-winning family doctor on the clinical faculty at Harvard Medical School, reveals the ways in which the drug companies have misrepresented statistical evidence, misled doctors, and compromised our health. The good news is that the best scientific evidence shows that reclaiming responsibility for your own health is often far more effective than taking the latest blockbuster drug.
You -- and your doctor -- will be stunned by this unflinching exposé of American medicine.
Customer Reviews:
Overdosed America.......2007-09-03
Abramson does a well researched job of explaining why Americans take so many pills, why many of them are not necessary, and how generics are generally as effective as brand names. It is an eyeopener concerning drug research and sales practices. Very useful in most peoples' everyday life.
Exposes the REAL Drug Pushers.......2007-08-12
The author demonstrates how the drug companies have learned how to manipulate the system that approves and recommends their product. As a result, your doctor has no clue that there is very weak scientific support behind many of the expensive drugs that they are telling you to take.
The power of this book can be demonstrated by its ability to predict future events. For example, shortly after I finished reading it, a study was published in the New England Journal of Medicine regarding the popular and expensive blood sugar controlling drug Avandia. Yes, Avandia does control blood sugar, but it also increases the risk of heart attacks by 43%. Whoops!
After reading this book I now understand why the Democrats and Republicans were climbing on top of each other to be the first to pass a drug bill that no one really wanted (except the drug companies). And I know that our health care system is overly expensive and not the best.
This is one of several excellent books that explores this fascinating topic. Cholesterol Myths and Cholesterol Conspiracy are some others that come to mind. But this book is broader in scope, and gives tremendous perspective on the health care system as a whole. It is also quite empowering, because you will learn that it's good to be skeptical of doctors, whether they are pushing expensive treatments and drugs, or simply dishing out hackneyed "lifestyle" advice about changing your diet.
The bottom line is to keep fit and flexible, and you will be doing more for yourself healthwise than all the prescription pads in the world.
Patients BEWARE your doctor might be harming you with bad drugs.......2007-08-04
Thanks Dr. Abramson for being honest enough to write your book and alert the rest of us about how the drug companies have turned our physicians into legalized drug pushers. I had a feeling that this was going on for the past 10 to 15 years when drug ads began appearing on TV, drug reps began swarming around my doctor's office and my own doctor seemed to be recommending too many drugs for my ailments. This book not only made me aware but it angered me to know that there are many patients out there who are literally suffering from the serious side effects of drugs that were recommended by doctors who allowed themselves to be brainwashed by the drug companies. SHAME ON ALL OF THEM for harming us. From now on, I will never trust my doctor completely and I encourage others to do the same. Demand that your doctor recommend natural alternatives and make sure you know ALL of the side effects of a drug before taking it.
classics .......2007-08-02
Overdosed America is a classic amongst books that expose problem of America's pharmaceutical industry. This book helps expose the terrible Vioxx and Celebrex scandal whereby side effects of these drugs were known by the pharmceutical industries and to certain extent by the FDA for years before action was taken to either take the drug off the market or blacklabeled was applied. It detailed how the structure of the pharmacuetical industry (lobbist, relation to medical schools, relation to FDA, relation to doctors) lead to disincentive to reduce cost and improve healthcare industry. This book has sprawn a whole literature related to this topic. If you want to read a book related to this field, start with this one. Other books might be written by industry specialists or reporters (this author was retired family doctor), but reading this book first helps you understand what the newer books are responding to.
When will it all stop?.......2007-06-22
This book has given me reason to believe America is on a downhill spiral. No not because of our lack of Church attendance, or prayer in our schools, or even crime in our streets. No otherwise legitimate businesses are fleecing the American taxpayer, and their partner in crime is the Congress, the Senate, and the President. This to me is a very sad state of affairs. We are allowing people to die just to keep Big Pharma fat.
Revealed here are the reasons for so many of our so called incurables. Diseases for which Medical Science has no solution. At the same time Big Pharma is using it's influences to prevent scientific advances from being achieved, or at best keeping them quiet, simply because it will hurt their bottom line.
Everyone gather around, Big Pharma, is in business to make a "PROFIT," and to keep it's share holders happy. Not I repeat, not to make you well. Again at best these drugs they produce are crutches, nearly permanent crutches. My Grandfather used insulin for nearly 35 years, up until the day of his death, and we are now finding that processed foods are the biggest reason for Diabetes. You know Factory food, instead of Farm fresh food. Even sader the drug industry has the FDA on it's side to help them to continue their ruse, over our medical schools, and our doctors, not to mention the general public. Just watch some of the commercials Big Pharma uses to convince you 'restless leg syndrom' calls for pills, and not exercise. See how Big Pharma seems to have a pill for whatever ailes you. Instead of changing your lifestyle, we have a pill for that. Got a headache, there is a pill. Indigeation, here is another pill. Oh and by the way, one of the side effects of the headache pill, is it will rot your stomache. Do not worry though, we have a pill for that as well. The nausea from the ulcer pill, we have a pill for that as well. Too fat, there is a pill, etc, etc. WHAT A JOKE.
Like most things now days, we as Americans, ask very few questions, and we believe the Government is taking care of us. Believe it or not this is why our knuckle headed president is proposing limits on who you can sue in a court of law, and what your settlement will be. So what if someone died, it controls the population, and our bottom line remains intact.
Todays medications are no better than the Snake Oil, that was sold in the times before the FDA, and we have made little, if any progress.
Please read the book, ask questions, and ask more questions. Become more proactive concerning yours and your family's health.
Book Description
There has been substantial growth in the use of data monitoring committees in recent years, by both government agencies and the pharmaceutical industry. This growth has been brought about by increasing recognition of the value of such committees in safeguarding trial participants as well as protecting trial integrity and the validity of conclusions. This very timely book describes the operation of data monitoring committees, and provides an authoritative guide to their establishment, purpose and responsibilities.
- Provides a practical overview of data monitoring in clinical trials.
- Describes the purpose, responsibilities and operation of data monitoring committees.
- Provides directly applicable advice for those managing and conducting clinical trials, and those serving on data monitoring committees.
- Gives insight into clinical data monitoring to those sitting on regulatory and ethical committees.
- Discusses issues pertinent to those working in clinical trials in both the US and Europe.
The practical guidance provided by this book will be of use to professionals working in and/or managing clinical trials, in academic, government and industry settings, particularly medical statisticians, clinicians, trial co-ordinators, and those working in regulatory affairs and bioethics.
Download Description
There has been substantial growth in the use of data monitoring committees in recent years, by both government agencies and the pharmaceutical industry. This growth has been brought about by increasing recognition of the value of such committees in safeguarding trial participants as well as protecting trial integrity and the validity of conclusions. This very timely book describes the operation of data monitoring committees, and provides an authoritative guide to their establishment, purpose and responsibilities. Provides a practical overview of data monitoring in clinical trials. Describes the purpose, responsibilities and operation of data monitoring committees. Provides directly applicable advice for those managing and conducting clinical trials, and those serving on data monitoring committees. Gives insight into clinical data monitoring to those sitting on regulatory and ethical committees. Discusses issues pertinent to those working in clinical trials in both the US and Europe. The practical guidance provided by this book will be of use to professionals working in and/or managing clinical trials, in academic, government and industry settings, particularly medical statisticians, clinicians, trial co-ordinators, and those working in regulatory affairs and bioethics.
Customer Reviews:
Excellent Guide.......2006-12-27
All or almost all significant clinical trials involve Data Monitoring Committees (DMCs; also known as Data Safety and Monitoring Committees; DSMBs). These bodies provide independent oversight of the safety and operation of clinical trials. This book is a well organized and clearly written discussion of the operation of DMCs/DSMBs. Very practically oriented, the book discusses virtually all aspects of DMCs/DSMBs from their rationale to the nuts and bolts of running committee meetings. In addition to being comprehensive, this book is distinguished by the liberal and appropriate use of numerous concrete examples to illustrate many of the issues that come up in the operation of a DMC/DSMB. This book should be read and owned by anyone serving on a DMC/DSMB. Anyone heavily involved in clinical trials should be familiar with the contents of this book.
Book Description
Thirty years ago, Henry Gadsden, the head of Merck, one of the world's largest drug companies, told Fortune magazine that he wanted Merck to be more like chewing gum maker Wrigley's. It had long been his dream to make drugs for healthy people so that Merck could "sell to everyone." Gadsden's dream now drives the marketing machinery of the most profitable industry on earth.
Drug companies are systematically working to widen the very boundaries that define illness, and the markets for medication grow ever larger. Mild problems are redefined as serious illness and common complaints are labeled as medical conditions requiring drug treatments. Runny noses are now allergic rhinitis, PMS has become a psychiatric disorder, and hyperactive children have ADD. When it comes to conditions like high cholesterol or low bone density, being "at risk" is sold as a disease.
Selling Sickness reveals how widening the boundaries of illness and lowering the threshold for treatments is creating millions of new patients and billions in new profits, in turn threatening to bankrupt health-care systems all over the world. As more and more of ordinary life becomes medicalized, the industry moves ever closer to Gadsden's dream: "selling to everyone."
Customer Reviews:
ver compelling.......2007-06-12
This book was a real eye-opener. The authors write very clearly, and it is well referenced. I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants an introduction to just how crooked the relationship can be between 'Big pharma' and the medical profession.
Buying into SICKNESS.......2007-04-20
Ray Moynihan is a legend, and more importantly he appears to have some integrity and intelligence. While other so-called journalists unquestioningly accept what is spoon-fed to them from big Pharma, Moynihan bothers to look beneath the veneer created by PR and spin-doctoring. The book has been written so that non-medical people can understand it, but is referenced in order that health professionals can check the veracity of his claims - and he really doesn't claim anything he can't back up by referenced literature. I applaud Dr Pelton for reading the book at all, but feel a little sad that he doesn't go a little further and discover for himself that most modern theory of disease is based on little more than wishful thinking, huge profits and massive disinformation campaigns.
Think for Yourself.......2007-03-13
This book does an excellent job exposing where some companies have done wrong. I can write the same book about almost any industry in the country. Now how many of them have developed a life-changing drug like Enbrel? As others have pointed out, this book (and most others like it) do a miserable job of providing context. Our life expectancies are lower than other industrialized nations because we are the fatest people on the planet, I can only imagine what it would be like if we didn't take the drugs that keep us alive. Can people exercise and take care of themselves and avoid a lot of these issues? Sure they can-but they don't and then they go to the doctor expecting a miracle cure. Can they not feed their little kids pounds of high frucotse corn syrup and avoid turming them into 20 year old diabetics, sure they can-but they don't. Every doctor I've ever been to or talked to says they tell every patient to exercise and watch their diet first (before ever prescribing anything). When the patient fails to comply then the doctor does what they think is the best thing to keep their patient alive. Pharmas certainly do wrong things, like any other business, and they need to be policed, but they should not be the scapegoat for sensationalist journalists (who are, guess what, selling the news/books) and short-sighted politicians are are unwilling or unable to deal with the larger healthcare issues our nation now faces.
Read this book, but please read others as well (that ought to make Amazon happy!)-try some that don't agree with what the media has programmed you to think about big pharma-if you can find any.
Disappointed.......2007-03-08
The book presents ten examples of unethical conduct by pharmaceutical compnies in order to promote their products. The tactics include misrepresenting statistical facts, overstating health risks, influencing medical authorities, creating new medical conditions in order to sell drugs for them and so on.
All the facts in the book are true. But the impression the book creates is skewed. Modern medicine cannot exist without pharmaceutical industry, and the relationship between it and medical professionals is more complex than portrayed in this text. I also believe that most doctors deserve more credit when it comes to choosing treatments for their patients.
But opinions aside, the book actually is getting boring as it progresses, probably because it is clear how each chapter will end soon after the beginning. I also expected less political and more medical information. I also think the authors should have touched on other reasons of proliferation of drug culture in modern society.
Overall I was disappointed.
Should be required reading for ALL women and girls!!!.......2007-02-23
As a single woman writer with a very modest income, I have struggled and struggled for years to pay ever increasing health insurance premiums. Health costs are going through the ROOF and much of this is explained in "Selling Sickness."
And the coup de grace is Governor Perry's recent mandate that all 11 and 12-year-old girls be vaccinated against cervical cancer. In February 2007, USA Today reported that Perry *bypassed* the state legislature to force this law on the books. Three shots of this nice, new chemical will cost $360 and prevent only 70% of cervical cancers. Yet Perty is comparing this to the Polio vaccine?
"Selling Sickness" pulls back the curtain on the politically-charged (and financially inspired) machinations of the pharmaceutical industry and explains the mass manipulation. It's a very disturbing book, but also well documented, well researched and utterly fascinating.
Read it and weep - for America's health care system.
Book Description
A number of books critical of the pharmaceutical industry have recently been published, but none has been an exposé written by a senior executive of one of the world's largest pharmaceutical companies. The Whistleblower is at once an unmasking of how corporations take care of malcontents and a gripping story of one man's fight to maintain his family and his sanity. Starting in 2003, the book details the illegal, even criminal business practices the author witnessed at his corporation, as well as his crusade to legalize the reimportation of drugs. It also explains how in this post-Enron world whistle-blowers can't simply be fired, and what the author's corporation did to coerce and silence him. A story of a battle that continues today, one which any American who takes or will take prescription drugs has a stake in, The Whistleblower is a powerful testimony.
Customer Reviews:
HONEST.......2007-09-02
I have read many books about the healthcare industry and this is a very HONEST book... it amazes me how we all got into the healthcare business to help people and then you get SUCKED into the politics that rampage the healthcare industry. If you are a honest, hardworking person and you irregularities and tell senior management the next thing, you know you are out looking for another job.... THEY FIRE YOU! When I read this book I didn't feel like I was the only this has happened too!
The Whistleblower: Confessions of a Healthcare Hitman.......2007-01-16
An excellent book on the new age of mergers and the lack of support for the employees that don't get the golden parachutes.
Good reading for all ages.
Giant Killers: The Team and the Law that Help Whistle-blowers Recover America's Stolen Billions .......2007-01-12
Most Americans don't know they have the legal power to redress corporate corruption and wrong-doing. Citizens can file a case under the False Claims Act if they have proof their employer has defrauded the United States government. 'Giant Killers,' by Henry Scammell, explains in gripping detail how average, honest Americans have played David against the corporate Goliath, and won. 'Giant Killers' brings out the David in all of us.
The book is an inspiring set of stories. In one, a veteran comes home to a job with a corporate electronics manufacturer, only to find that his company expects him to approve faulty products that are then sold to the U.S. government, at great profit. He balks. His bosses ostracize and then force him out of the company. This story plays out agains and again throughout the book, till you want to hurl the book at a wall in despair.
Enter the lawyers. As a lawyer who prosecutes 'qui tam' suits under the False Claims Act (the 1986 law that allows whistle-blowers to get a percentage of the financial settlement if the case against their employer is successful), I believe Henry Scammell's book does a good job of showing how whistle-blowers and their legal teams can win in the fight against corporate corruption. This area of law is not widely publicized, which is a shame, since there is no end to corporations and companies ready to practice fraud against the government, if they can get away with it.
'Giant Killers' is a book that is easy to read and is emotionally satisfying: the good guys win in the end. Publicity for the False Claims Act is timely, since we may be needing this protction against fraud now more than ever. Cheer for the whistle-blowers and their lawyers who bring a little justice to an unjust world.
Trouble under the covers.......2006-11-01
The Whistleblower describes Dr. Rost's experience as a pharmaceutical executive with three different companies (Wyeth, Pharmacia, and Pfizer), focusing on some questionable practices that went on behind the scenes, and his efforts to cope with the legal and professional ramifications.
It's engaging reading, and disturbing at the same time, with the expected doses of corporate intrigue, dirty tricks, legal maneuvering, etc. As I mentioned in a recent post, the pharma industry has no corner on the market of either virtue or vice, and there is certainly some unsavory stuff revealed in these pages. However, while reading it, the quiet voice of experience continued to remind me, chapter by chapter, that "there are two sides to every story." This book is one side.
Pfizer managed - twice - to acquire companies (Warner-Lambert and Pharmacia) that had some dubious marketing skeletons in their closets. Dr. Rost was in the process of trying to get Pharmacia to clean up its act in his franchise (Genotropin) when the acquistion occurred, and the subsequent problems unfolded when Pfizer inherited the legacy issues (and people) surrounding this franchise. How all of this was handled and mishandled is the focus of this book.
Dr. Rost is evidently a man of no small ego, from what I can gather out of this book and his blog - not always a bad trait, as those with a strong ego drive often are the ones who persevere to accomplish big things. And I will give the man this - he's got guts. He put it out on the line personally and professionally, when he thought there was wrongdoing. Love him, hate him, or scratch your head in perplexity - he's got some steel in his spine.
Of course, it is impossible to verify the veracity of everything contained in this - or any similar - book. However, The Whistleblower does provide some clear warning signals, and if its end result is to make corporations tread more carefully and transparently, then perhaps good will come of it.
The Whistleblower - Confessions of a Healthcare Hitman.......2006-10-11
Wow !!!
I couldn't put this book down until I finished it. Dr. Rost is a savior to the pharmaceutical industry (although he may not be recognized as such) and to the prescription-dependent public. As a health care person, he confirmed everything I always suspected. He sacrificed everything for his integrity, honesty, and ethics. A rare cat in today's world of greed, money, and power. This is a must read for the entire country, especially for health care workers, legislators, state and federal agencies and officials!
Book Description
Today, most people use prescription medications. Every year, the multi-billion dollar pharmaceutical industry produces new medicines that treat everything from arthritis to AIDS, from high cholesterol to depression. But, despite recent controversies regarding the safety of drugs, consumers know little about the medications that they ingest and inject. How are these new medicines invented? How do consumers know that drugs are safe and effective? How are they tested? Who regulates their production - and who watches the regulators? How do drug companies produce the vast quantities needed for the marketplace, and why do they market their drugs as they do? The New Medicines leads the reader through the maze of the modern drug industry - from bench to bedside - and provides consumers with a step-by-step understanding of how new medicines are created, approved, marketed, and sold. In addition to explaining how drugs reach the medicine cabinet, the author - an experienced researcher and teacher - provides the scientific and business background for understanding the current controversial issues surrounding new medicines, such as:
- The rise and fall of the COX-2 inhibitors, Vioxx and Celebrex, and the process by which they were invented, approved, and re-evaluated.
- The saga of the cancer drug Erbitux and its creator, the company Imclone, made famous as the centerpiece of the Martha Stewart insider-trading scandal
- The strengths and weaknesses of the approval process of the Food and Drug Administration
- The controversial new marketing techniques of the pharmaceutical industry
A balanced work that provides readers with an unbiased look at the drug industry, The New Medicines will answer the questions of anyone who has ever looked at a bottle of their prescription pills and wondered, "how did that get here?"
Customer Reviews:
Are new drugs safe?.......2006-04-22
Every year the pharmaceutical industry produces new medicines - but are they safe? One of the best ways a consumer can find out more about how such new drugs are tested and presented is by reading THE NEW MEDICINES: HOW DRUGS ARE CREATED, APPROVED, MARKETED AND SOLD, by biomedical researcher and teacher Bernice Schacter. Chapters provide historical and business background around major new drugs which have been controversial news topics, analyze the FDA's processes, and survey new marketing techniques aimed at consumers rather than physicians. From product launches to unknown factors in drug interactions, THE NEW MEDICINES provides an excellent historical overview.
Book Description
Greg Critser's brilliantly incisive Generation Rx shows how shockingly little we know about the prescription drugs we take and the hazards they may pose to our health. Americans are prescribed more drugs today than ever before, and the pharmaceutical industry has gained tremendous financial power and political clout. Drawing on exclusive access to the strategists, scientists, and current and former heads of GlaxoSmithKline, Eli Lilly, Merck, and other drug giants, Critser chronicles the transformation of big pharma from onetime lumbering medical conglomerate to media-savvy consumer enterprise. He also reveals the direct and indirect consequences for our health, among them increased incidence of damage to major organs, unprecedented medication use by the very young and very old, and the emergence of polypharmacy, in which various drugs taken together can unleash unanticipated, and often deadly, effects.
Generation Rx urges all of us to think about the price we pay, as a society and with our own bodies, for our chronic use of prescription drugs.
Customer Reviews:
Articulate and Insightful.......2006-09-26
Here, as in his FAT LAND, Critser performs a public service in the best possible format. Major issues like the growth of the drug culture are usually presented with more technical detail than the non-specialist can stand or with lurid alarmism. Here Critser condenses huge amounts of data and first hand research in a prose that is both lucid and interesting. In a country where every other ad is for a drug, each citizen should read this exciting volume.
The Rx syndrome:.......2006-03-16
GenerationRx is extremely informative and a fine introduction to the manner in which prescription drugs have moved to the fore through media advertising. Chapters seem endless but persistence is well worth the effort. The second half of the book becomes increasingly practical. The concluding advice and the listed web sites are well worth the investment.
Much Better Books Are Available!.......2006-01-11
Generation Rx" begins by musing over an article in the House and Home section of the New York Times reporting the rise in popularity of "triple-wide" medicine cabinets - taller, wider, and deeper. Cause of this phenomena - the average number of prescriptions/person was 7/year in '93, 11 in '00, and 12 in '04 - despite enormous uncertainty about their benefits and safety. (There are an estimated 106,000 deaths/year from serious adverse drug reactions from just those properly diagnosed and taken. Drug-induced liver disease is the most common cause of acute liver failure - more than viral hepatitis.)
A major source of this growth is the increased amount spent to advertise prescription drugs to consumer - from $2 million in '80 to $4.4 billion in '04. Protecting these investments and sales is an additional one-half billion/year spent lobbying by pharmaceutical firms.
So much for the interesting part. The vast bulk of "Generation Rx" is a rambling series of anecdotes guaranteed to put the reader to sleep. I instead would recommend "The Truth About Drug Companies," and "Overdosed America" - both written by eminent physicians.
A History and Critique of Pharma "Tribal Marketing".......2005-12-24
Greg Crister, in his new book, Generation Rx: How Prescription Drugs Are Altering American Lives, Minds, and Bodies, puts forth the notion that "big pharma" has created a nation of pharmaceutical tribes, each with its own unique beliefs, taboos, and brand loyalties. According to Crister, there are 3 such tribes:
1. Tribe of High-Performance Youth: children and adolescents who are medicated for depression, attention deficit disorder, and a range of other psychological and behavioral problems mostly because of "their parents' completely under-standable wish that they perform well in a society of ever increasing demands to perform well, nay, superbly."
2. Tribe of Productivity and Comfort (MiddleYears): those of us at the middle-to-late points in our careers as parents and/or earners who are preprogrammed to consume drugs like Lipitor, Viagra, Prozac, and Prilosec, to "shore up our ability to produce more and better and to relieve discomfit, including the discomfit of having to watch what and how much we eat and drink and of sitting on our duff."
3. Tribe of High-Performance Aging: seniors who take drugs "not only to alleviate the discomfit of aging, but also to extend their lives."
Crister credits Pat Kelly, president of U.S. Pharmaceuticals for Pfizer, for inspiring the idea of consumer tribalism-pharma's need to sell lifestyle, not things. "By conjuring brand tribalism-an intense, interactive, and information-driven promotion of a product and the values it is made to seem to embody-a company can not only gain new customers, but also hold on to the old ones," says Crister.
According to Crister, before big pharmaceutical companies could create these tribes to consume their drugs, they had to become "unbound" from government restrictions. Crister devotes about 100 pages-38% of the book-to a history of how direct-to-consumer (DTC) advertising became legal is the U.S.
I found this to be the most interesting part of the book because of the first-hand accounts of people who played critical roles in making DTC advertising possible. Some of these "DTC pioneers" are still part of the pharmaceutical advertising scene today. Also, I know some of these people personally, which makes reading the story all the more interesting. Crister's account-which I have no reason to believe is inaccurate (the book is chuck full of references)-gave me insight into the backgrounds of these pioneers and how they got to where they are today.
Crister seems to have had unusual access to the principals-including pharmaceutical executives-involved. He peppers his story with many quotes and colorful phrases based on these interviews. Although I am happy that these people's stories have been told in their own words, some of these words have been used to make Crister's case against the industry.
There are a few juicy anti-DTC quotes from pharma execs in the book. Although the execs made these statements prior to DTC becoming legals, twenty-five years later and with eight years of DTC experience, the industry is still confronted by critics regarding DTC's cost, educational effectiveness, and ability to present risk information. For a review of these issues, see my article, "DTC Pros and Cons Presented at FDA Hearing," in Pharma Marketing News (www.pharmamarketingnews.com).
Crister, of course, has an axe to grind with the pharmaceutical industry and offers up the same criticisms of pharma marketing practices as did many other critics before him. His distinction, however, is the colorful and amusing language he uses. Here's a sampling in no particular logical order:
* On blockbuster drugs: "By late 2004, blockbusterism, the jumbo golden Rx goose, seemed to have laid its last egg."
* On CME: "The Demi Moore of this lap dance is CME."
* On Gen-X marketing: "The synergy marketers boogied at full tilt." I am still not sure what he means by that.
* On the liver: "the canary in the mineshaft of Generation Rx."
* On patients as consumers: "a person with medical needs" these days acts "as if he is not going to the doctor but rather to the mall." Crister's main reform idea is that patients should stop thinking of themselves as consumers and that we all should cut down our own use of prescription drugs. Not a bad suggestion, but utter radicalism to some pharmaceutical marketers.
* On the Pharmaceutical Marketing Congress: "the world's fair of pharmaceutical marketing."
* On Pat Kelly, president of U.S. Pharmaceuticals for Pfizer: "unquestionably, the definitive lead guitar player in the rocking world of modern drug marketing."
* On physician detailing: "more of a pharmaceutical lap dance than, like, and old-fashioned sales call." For more on the relation of sex and sales reps, see Pharma Marketing Blog ("Sexy Reps Sell Rx"; www.pharmamarketingblog.com).
* On polypharmacy: "in that regard most drug companies have been as responsible as a thirsty sailor in port after a year at sea." He said "thirsty," but I am sure he meant "horny."
Aside from the seminal events described above, Crister also recounts the history of many other "firsts" in DTC, including the first DTC ad that mentioned a drug by name and, afterward, the first non-branded, help-seeking ad that was designed to "drive patients to their doctors." I'll leave it up to you to read the book if you want to learn more about these events.
I will also leave it up to you to read the book for Crister's solutions, which appear to be the usual ones suggested by other critics. Crister does suggest something unique: get a healthy life in order to "pharmaproof" yourself.
rather disappointed.......2005-11-26
I give Mr. Critser credit for his writing ability as well as his ability to make and sustain an argument. The book flows like crazy. But that's also where the book breaks down for me. It is a long argument, rather than a painstaking work of investigation. I kept thinking that the author went into this with an axe to grind or some other kind of vendetta, and this book was the result. I also felt at times that he was trying to sensationalize his points, i.e. draw a more inflammatory conclusion than was warranted from the evidence he had at his disposal.
Some people may consider it worth reading simply because it's so well written; this will be especially true for the growing numbers of Americans who share Mr. Critser's cynical perspectives on the drug industry. No doubt they'll root him along as he moves from chapter to chapter. For me, I can't justify more than the two stars I've given it.
Book Description
In some parts of the world spending on pharmaceuticals is astronomical. In others people do not have access to basic or life-saving drugs. Individuals struggle to afford medications; whole populations are neglected, considered too poor to constitute profitable markets for the development and distribution of necessary drugs. The ethnographies brought together in this timely collection analyze both the dynamics of the burgeoning international pharmaceutical trade and the global inequalities that emerge from and are reinforced by market-driven medicine. They demonstrate that questions about who will be treated and who will not filter through every phase of pharmaceutical production, from preclinical research to human testing, marketing, distribution, prescription, and consumption.
Whether considering how American drug companies seek to create a market for antidepressants in Japan, how Brazil has created a model HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment program, or how the urban poor in Delhi understand and access healthcare, these essays illuminate the roles of corporations, governments, NGOs, and individuals in relation to global pharmaceuticals. Some essays show how individual and communal identities are affected by the marketing and availability of medications. Among these are an exploration of how the pharmaceutical industry shapes popular and expert understandings of mental illness in North America and Great Britain. There is also an examination of the agonizing choices facing Ugandan families trying to finance AIDS treatment. Several essays explore the inner workings of the emerging international pharmaceutical regime. One looks at the expanding quest for clinical research subjects; another at the entwining of science and business interests in the Argentine market for psychotropic medications. By bringing the moral calculations involved in the production and distribution of pharmaceuticals into stark relief, this collection charts urgent new territory for social scientific research.
Contributors. Kalman Applbaum, João Biehl, Ranendra K. Das, Veena Das, David Healy, Arthur Kleinman, Betty Kyaddondo, Andrew Lakoff, Anne Lovell, Lotte Meinert, Adriana Petryna, Michael A. Whyte, Susan Reynolds Whyte
Customer Reviews:
Easy and Interesting.......2007-03-09
quick and cheap delivery, book is in great condition. the book itself is compiled of different authors so it covers a range of issues from different perspectives. The tone is more informative than defensive ar argumentative.
Book Description
Merck and the pharmaceutical industry are headline news today. Controversies over public safety, prices, and the ability of the industry to develop the new drugs and vaccines that society needs have been covered worldwide. Roy Vagelos, who was head of research and then CEO at Merck from the mid-1970s through the early 1990s, addresses these issues here. Success with targeted research started Merck on a path that would lead to a series of block-buster therapies that carried the firm to the top of the global industry in the 1990s and Vagelos into the top position at the company. Trained as a physician and scientist, he had to learn how to run a successful business while holding to the highest principles of ethical behavior. He was not always successful. He and his co-author explain where and why he failed to achieve his goals and carefully analyze where he succeeded.
Book Description
This book explores the controversial relationship between physicians and the pharmaceutical industry, identifies the ethical tensions and controversies, and proposes numerous reforms both for medicine's own professional integrity and for effective public regulation of the industry.
Customer Reviews:
from The NYTimes- April 24, 2007.......2007-04-24
from The NYTimes- April 24, 2007
Medicine and the Drug Industry, a Morality Tale
By ABIGAIL ZUGER, M.D.
It was in 1949 that Elvin Stakman, president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, issued the membership their marching orders: "Science cannot stop while ethics catches up."
And sure enough, from bombs to clones, the ethicists have generally kept to the rear of the scientific parade: they are the ones with the big brooms trying to restore order after the floats and the elephants go by.
Those brooms sweep slowly. Often, by the time the ethicists finish laying out facts and weighing relevant moral values, the worst of any given crisis has passed. But recently, those who work in medicine have moved closer to the fray: they staff acute-care hospitals and monitor events in real time, aiming for a little less retrospective philosophy and a little more damage control.
In this proactive spirit Howard Brody, a medical ethicist, has brought his discipline's tools to the relationship between the medical profession and the pharmaceutical industry. This problematic tangle of moral compromise (or triumphant health-promoting collaboration, depending on your point of view) has inspired several polemics by physicians in recent years, all of them straightforward indictments of the pharmaceutical industry and its for-profit webs.
Dr. Brody is also a physician, but he aims for the measured cadences of the ethicist instead, calmly laying out the relevant facts and then reasoning from basic principles to determine whether the medicine-pharmaceutical relationship, as it stands now, is an ethical one or not.
That Dr. Brody manages to deliver a hundred-odd pages of determinedly objective analysis before he, too, lets the righteous indignation roll should not really be called a failure of methodology: even as he carefully lays out the facts in this impressively comprehensive book, those facts begin to speak damningly for themselves.
The small-time operations that grew up into modern medicine and Big Pharma joined together back in the late 19th century, allied in the name of scientific medicine against a variety of dubious health-care entrepreneurs. The A.M.A. actually called the early pharmaceutical companies the "ethical" drug makers, to distinguish them from unscrupulous patent-medicine peddlers.
Over time, this casual alliance has been reinforced with such complex and often invisible bonds that, in Dr. Brody's title metaphor, medicine and pharma are now "hooked" like two pieces of Velcro, tethered by a million barbs and as dependent on each other as any addicts are on their substance of choice.
Dr. Brody systematically analyzes the levels of connection, from the lowly drug salesman buying lunch for a roomful of medical students (future customers all) to the lucrative contracts and patents that simultaneously fuel medical research, fill corporate coffers and give us, as the industry doggedly and quite correctly points out, dozens of truly miraculous life-saving drugs.
Many of these interactions are probably now familiar to most readers: the omnipresent logo-bearing trinkets festooning medical offices, the free samples of the latest, most expensive drugs, the "ask your doctor" television ads.
Less familiar may be some of industry's other friendly overtures: the lavish junkets and cash rewards for some "high-prescribing" doctors; the subtle manipulations of research data; the way-too-generous financing of postgraduate medical education; the very cozy relationship with the Food and Drug Administration and its physician consultants; and a casually Orwellian interference with the average physician's prescription pad.
A drug salesman recalls for Dr. Brody the time his company asked a local doctor to evaluate various sales presentations for a particular drug: "He'd been selected because our data showed that he was a relatively low prescriber. ...Basically, the company was willing to bet $500 or $750 that if he heard the same drug pitch all day, by the end of the day he'd be so brainwashed that he could not possibly prescribe any other drug but ours."
All this mutual back-scratching would be fine if patients' interests were indeed being served. But ample data indicates quite the reverse. Patients, after all, are the ones who pay for expensive drugs when cheaper would do as well, and the ones who swallow dangerous drugs nudged to market by their manufacturers.
Many individual problematic drugs make an appearance here. Chloromycetin, a toxic antibiotic from the 1950s, was relentlessly promoted by its manufacturer for routine use until the day its patent expired. (Still available in generic form, it is now used only as a last resort.) Thalidomide never caused an epidemic of birth defects in this country, as it did in Germany, only because a single stubborn F.D.A. officer was dissatisfied with the drug's safety profile, despite the manufacturer's repeated assurances that everything was fine.
The epitaph of the recently withdrawn painkiller Vioxx, whose virtues were subtly spun to the medical community in prestigious research journals, is still being written in litigation around the country.
"Research that is driven by marketing rather than by scientific aims would seem, in the end, to be low-quality research," Dr. Brody comments mildly about the Vioxx fiasco.
His overall conclusion is similarly low-key: "A profession is not just a way of making money; it's a form of public trust. ...Medicine has for many decades now been betraying this public trust."
It is not a particularly surprising conclusion, and, in fact, there is relatively little in this book to surprise anyone familiar with the territory. Rather than new material, it provides a meticulously referenced compendium of all the relevant history and commentary (including, for full disclosure, excerpts from one of this reviewer's columns in this newspaper).
Its breadth translates into a lack of depth in some areas, especially the final section, in which Dr. Brody tries to outline a feasible solution to the mess. His suggestions are cogent but a little skimpy, given that absent an act of God, it will probably take an act of Congress to pry medicine and industry apart someday, preferably as part of thoroughgoing health care reform.
Still, for a detailed overview of this very jagged terrain, if not for a map of the pathway out, a better general guide than this one is hard to imagine.
Abigail Zuger, a regular contributor, is a physician in Manhattan.
Book Description
An eye-opening look at Big Pharma's unethical and exploitative drug trials in the global South.
"Medical research imposes burdens. But generally speaking, we don't like to know it….If the history of human experimentation tells us anything, from the bloody vivisections of the first millennium to the Tuskegee Syphilis Study, it is that such burdens made secret will fall heaviest on the poorest and most powerless among us."—from The Body Hunters
This groundbreaking book reveals the unethical drug-testing practices of the multinational pharmaceutical industry. In its quest to develop lucrative new drugs for the world's rich, the industry has turned away from the health needs of the world's poor. And yet, over the past decade, Big Pharma has quietly exported its clinical research business to the global South, where ethical oversight is minimal, and sick, poor, and desperate patients are abundant.
In The Body Hunters, investigative journalist Sonia Shah shows how the pharmaceutical industry is using testing procedures in the global South that would cause scandals in the developed world. In India, dozens of patients in drug trials have perished suffering deadly side effects known to the FDA; in Zambia, AIDS babies in clinical trials have been administered placebos.
The Body Hunters is based on several years of original research and reporting from Africa and Asia, and describes dozens of trials, as well as the checkered history of Western medical science in poor countries.
Customer Reviews:
Excellent Book.......2007-09-25
My review here is brief due to time limitation, not to lack of very positive things to say of Sonia Shah's The Body Hunters. The book, very well-researched and argued, quite convincingly questions the pharmaceutical industry, the federal government and even the role of consumers in promoting drugs that turn a quick buck while drugs desperately needed to treat life-threatening illnesses in human populations suffering in terrifying numbers are not available. I highly recommend this to anyone interested in knowing more about equity in health-care.
A Must-Read.......2007-05-10
The Body Hunters by Sonia Shah is a fascinating look at modern drug trials. The FDA prefers drugs to be tested against placebos to show effectiveness. Americans and Western Europeans don't want to risk taking placebos. What to do, what to do? Pharmaceutical companies, instead of offering (usually more expensive) alternatives to the FDA, cheerfully administer placebos to mothers with AIDS and children with diptheria. Big Pharma argues, "Hey, these people are impoverished and wouldn't be getting anything at all if normally, what's the big deal? At least half of them are getting the drugs!" Read the book to read Shah's persuasive argument as to "what's the big deal." Not just an angry voice, she offers real, practical solutions to the problem.
I also enjoyed that the book provides a brief history of experimentation on human subjects. Hits on Tuskeegee, experimentation in Nazi concentration camps, and a few other infamous examples. Gives a rundown of the explosion of "lifestyle" drugs like Viagra and Prozac. (Did you know impotence and depression were hardly ever diagnosed prior to the introduction of these drugs? Are current levels of impotence and depression accurate???)
My only quibble is that Shah's writing is not the best. She is in desperate need of a thesaurus. People in the book tend to be "aghast" and "outraged."
This book is timely and important. Just yesterday I read in my local paper an article on a new STD drug found to slow the onset of AIDS. I read with baited breath...sure enough, the trial was conducted in Burkina Faso, and half the subjects were given placebos. The subjects were improverished women with HIV.
An eye-opening expose and 'must have' acquisition........2006-09-24
The development branch of the multi-national pharmaceutical industry has begun to expert its clinical research to the developing world, where ethical oversight is minimal and desperate patients abound - there to conduct research forbidden in the U.S. That's the hard-hitting message of a title based on several years of original research and reporting from Asia and Africa, making THE BODY HUNTERS: TESTING NEW DRUGS ON THE WORLD'S POOREST PATIENTS an eye-opening expose and 'must have' acquisition.
Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch
Bold Expose without Sensationalism.......2006-08-17
In a remarkably bold 'report', the lurking dangers of recent trends in clinical trials through contract research organizations is well presented. Without adopting an obvious higher moral ground nor using a broad brush to paint all of Big Pharma as pure evil (as some recent books on Big Pharma have done), the author focuses purely on the issue of clinical trials. Using recent examples from various companies (all familiar names to the average reader), the author poses interesting ethical questions regarding the "use" of patients in developing countries. In a series of interesting observations, the author explains why it is more "economical" and "practical" for drug companies to perform the FDA-required trials using measures such as "events" (number o f deaths during a particular number of days, or n'th death). While the bulk of the book is devoted to examples ranging from India, Latin America, and Africa to discuss the modalities of clinical trials and raise pertinent questions, the conclusion of the book is not very substantial. However, the author does point out that drugs should be seen as "social goods" and not mere new products; thus the means of developing them should be fair. Point well-made. A must read for anyone in the medical/pharmaceutical industry, investor, or a patient who uses any medicine.
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General
| Personal Health
| Health, Mind & Body
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| Books
The Truth About the Drug Companies: How They Deceive Us and What to Do About It
Selling Sickness: How the World's Biggest Pharmaceutical Companies Are Turning Us All Into Patients
On the Take: How Medicine's Complicity with Big Business Can Endanger Your Health
Powerful Medicines: The Benefits, Risks, and Costs of Prescription Drugs
The Hundred-Year Lie: How Food and Medicine Are Destroying Your Health
