John Abramson > Quotes

“In 1955, amid the great fanfare that accompanied the initial release of the [polio] vaccine, Dr. Jonas Salk was asked who owned the patent. He replied, "Well, the people, I would say. Could you patent the sun?”
― John Abramson, Overdosed America: The Broken Promise of American Medicine

“It is much more important to know what sort of patient has a disease than what sort of disease a patient has.”
― John Abramson, Overdosed America: The Broken Promise of American Medicine

“Most of all, immunize yourself from the drug companies efforts to convince you that you desperately need their advertised products. If you really needed the product, it is unlikely that drug companies would be spending money on advertising. Remember, there aren't many ads for insulin on TV.”
― John Abramson, Overdosed America: The Broken Promise of American Medicine

“The two most trusted medical journals in the United States had published incorrect, manufacturer-biased reports about major drugs. The FDA knew that both articles had misrepresented the data but did not correct the misleading information.”
― John Abramson, Sickening: How Big Pharma Broke American Health Care and How We Can Repair It

“You don't like the way the study of an expensive drug for blood pressure is going? A nonissue - just stop the study before the results reach statistical significance.”
― John Abramson, Overdosed America: The Broken Promise of American Medicine

“One of the best-kept secrets in all of health care — understood by few doctors — is that the peer reviewers, medical journal editors, and guideline writers, who are assumed to be performing due diligence to ensure the accuracy and completeness of the data reported from company-sponsored studies, do not have access to the real data from these trials. The published reports that doctors accept as fully vetted scientific evidence can be more accurately described as unverified data summaries prepared largely by or for the sponsoring drug companies.”
― John Abramson, Sickening: How Big Pharma Broke American Health Care and How We Can Repair It

“Flexner's good intentions had laid the groundwork for the specialty- and research-dominated system of medical education that still stands- the more prestigious the school, the greater the emphasis on biomedical research and the less the emphasis on pragmatic medical care.”
― John Abramson, Overdosed America: The Broken Promise of American Medicine