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Pharmocracy: How Corrupt Deals and Misguided Medical Regulations Are Bankrupting America--and What to Do About It
Our healthcare system is irretrievably broken, and now it is devastating the US financially. Pharmocracy uncovers egregious FDA incompetence and abuse, and shows how over-regulation causes lifesaving medications to be delayed or suppressed altogether, and makes consumers pay inflated prices for FDA-approved therapies that are only minimally effective and often dangerous. A free market approach to healthcare, Faloon argues, would spare Medicare and Medicaid from insolvency, while significantly improving the health of the American public.
- GenresNonfictionScience
381 pages, Hardcover
First published September 1, 2011
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
January 9, 2013
This book was sent to my by my father-in-law and I believe everyone should read it. It will make you even more skeptical of our government's Food and Drug Administration than you were before. Mitt Romney needs to read this. Every Congressman and every voting citizen should read this.
February 8, 2020
This book is infuriating for two reasons.
The first is the claims against the FDA and big pharma. If only half of them are true, then the FDA is at best an incompetent organization. He doesn't reveal anything about big pharma that most people don't already know, but it's still frustrating to read. I did my best to fact check the author's claims, and it appears there is a lot of truth to everything he says.
The second reason is the books formatting and tone. For some reason, the book compiles magazine articles in reverse chronological order, so we have references to events in the past as if we should all know about them, and then when we get to the back of the book we find the full events being explained in real time. You'll be better off reading back to front. As far as tone, the author writes with the same surety of a talking news head, that obviously everything he's saying is so right, and anyone who would disagree with him is so wrong, because they are. Obviously. The arrogance made me constantly stop to wonder if he ever heard the opinions of someone who doesn't hate the FDA with all their might. Probably not.
While it does point out a lot of errors made by the FDA, the book is quickly becoming outdated. At the time of publishing, fewer drugs were being approved every year. Since the books publication almost ten years ago, yearly drug approvals have nearly doubled. Some bits are highly relevant right now, such as constant references to the law requiring Medicare pay full retail price for some drugs, which is currently a major talking point of the 2020 presidential debates, and at time of writing there are 5 bills in Congress related to drug price negotiations.
It's an important book to read for understanding how politics and bureaucracy have pushed us to this point of high drug costs.
The first is the claims against the FDA and big pharma. If only half of them are true, then the FDA is at best an incompetent organization. He doesn't reveal anything about big pharma that most people don't already know, but it's still frustrating to read. I did my best to fact check the author's claims, and it appears there is a lot of truth to everything he says.
The second reason is the books formatting and tone. For some reason, the book compiles magazine articles in reverse chronological order, so we have references to events in the past as if we should all know about them, and then when we get to the back of the book we find the full events being explained in real time. You'll be better off reading back to front. As far as tone, the author writes with the same surety of a talking news head, that obviously everything he's saying is so right, and anyone who would disagree with him is so wrong, because they are. Obviously. The arrogance made me constantly stop to wonder if he ever heard the opinions of someone who doesn't hate the FDA with all their might. Probably not.
While it does point out a lot of errors made by the FDA, the book is quickly becoming outdated. At the time of publishing, fewer drugs were being approved every year. Since the books publication almost ten years ago, yearly drug approvals have nearly doubled. Some bits are highly relevant right now, such as constant references to the law requiring Medicare pay full retail price for some drugs, which is currently a major talking point of the 2020 presidential debates, and at time of writing there are 5 bills in Congress related to drug price negotiations.
It's an important book to read for understanding how politics and bureaucracy have pushed us to this point of high drug costs.
October 20, 2017
It's very hard to formulate the words to describe what an eye opening read this is. Everyone should read this book & continually be doing research. This has to be my favorite nonfiction/ medical book so far!!!
April 2, 2025
Great information that I will take & use in my everyday life going forward. I will for sure also go get supplements from their website. I knew the medical field always seemed shady, but this validated how bad the medicine/supplement aspect of the full umbrella is. I can’t imagine what else is going on behind closed doors in hospitals or doctor offices.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews