Marcia Angell > Quotes

“Few things a doctor does are more important than relieving pain. . . pain is soul destroying. No patient should have to endure intense pain unnecessarily. The quality of mercy is essential to the practice of medicine; here, of all places, it should not be strained.”
― Marcia Angell

“It is simply no longer possible to believe much of the clinical research that is published, or to rely on the judgment of trusted physicians or authoritative medical guidelines. I take no pleasure in this conclusion, which I reached slowly and reluctantly over my two decades as an editor of the New England Journal of Medicine.”
― Marcia Angell

“Once upon a time, drug companies promoted drugs to treat diseases. Now it is often the opposite. They promote diseases to fit their drugs.”
― Marcia Angell, The Truth About the Drug Companies: How They Deceive Us and What to Do About It

“No wonder big pharma will do almost anything to protect exclusive marketing rights, despite the fact that doing so flies in the face of all its rhetoric about the free market.”
― Marcia Angell, The Truth About the Drug Companies: How They Deceive Us and What to Do About It

“[...] The problems I’ve discussed are not limited to psychiatry, although they reach their most florid form there. Similar conflicts of interest and biases exist in virtually every field of medicine, particularly those that rely heavily on drugs or devices. It is simply no longer possible to believe much of the clinical research that is published, or to rely on the judgment of trusted physicians or authoritative medical guidelines. I take no pleasure in this conclusion, which I reached slowly and reluctantly over my two decades as an editor of The New England Journal of Medicine.
(Drug Companies & Doctors: A Story of Corruption, Jan 15 2009)”
― Marcia Angell

“As an example, companies would require researchers to compare a new drug with a placebo (sugar pill) instead of with an older drug.”
― Marcia Angell, The Truth About the Drug Companies: How They Deceive Us and What to Do About It

“I AM INDEBTED ABOVE ALL TO DR. ARNOLD S. (Bud) Relman, with whom I share my life. Together we wrote an extended article about the pharmaceutical industry called “America’s Other Drug Problem—The Insatiable Greed of the Pharmaceutical Industry.” It was published in the December 16, 2002, issue of The New Republic, and received the 2002 George Polk Award for magazine reporting. In outline, the pres-ent book largely follows that article.”
― Marcia Angell, The Truth About the Drug Companies: How They Deceive Us and What to Do About It

“It is time for the scientific community to stop giving alternative medicine a free ride. There cannot be two kinds of medicine — conventional and alternative. There is only medicine that has been adequately tested and medicine that has not, medicine that works and medicine that may or may not work. Once a treatment has been tested rigorously, it no longer matters whether it was considered alternative at the outset. If it is found to be reasonably safe and effective, it will be accepted. But assertions, speculation, and testimonials do not substitute for evidence. Alternative treatments should be subjected to scientific testing no less rigorous than that required for conventional treatments.
Alternative Medicine — The Risks of Untested and Unregulated Remedies”
― Marcia Angell