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.
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"Nobody who reads this book will want to take a pill ever again. Dr Angell exposes the modern legal drugs trade for what it is, so deeply rooted in profit lust and political corruption, it's got nothing to do with curing disease and everything to do with making truckloads of money. Drug companies cry poor, yet they charge exorbitant prices for their products, drag out their patent rights as long as possible, and prevent the medicine being distributed more cheaply in poorer countries that desperately need it - all while they make even higher record profits every year. They spend a lot of time developing nearly identical drugs for trivial conditions like colds (because they can sell a lot), but hardly ever produce treatments for rare disorders, on which they might only break even. Despite claiming that they need to charge high prices to conduct research, they do almost none, instead piggy-backing on taxpayer-funded universities and research organizations, so their research is basically free. They pay doctors with "educational" seminars in exotic locations and provide them with misinformation so the medicos choose their drugs every time and even prescribe them for illnesses for which they were not designed, and on which they have minimal effect. Although I have been wary of the drugs trade for many years, this was the book that provided me with the evidence to back up my suspicions. Read it and be informed: despite being a few years old, and American in focus, it's still applicable around the world today - you will understand much better how you get your medicine and make better choices."
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James (4 out of 5 stars)