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Our Daily Meds
In the last thirty years, the big pharmaceutical companies have transformed themselves into marketing machines selling dangerous medicines as if they were Coca-Cola or Cadillacs. They pitch drugs with video games and soft cuddly toys for children; promote them in churches and subways, at NASCAR races and state fairs. They've become experts at promoting fear of disease, just so they can sell us hope. No question: drugs can save lives. But the relentless marketing that has enriched corporate executives and sent stock prices soaring has come with a dark side. Prescription pills taken as directed by physicians are estimated to kill one American every five minutes. And that figure doesn't reflect the damage done as the overmedicated take to the roads. "Our Daily Meds "connects the dots for the first time to show how corporate salesmanship has triumphed over science inside the biggest pharmaceutical companies and, in turn, how this promotion driven industry has taken over the practice of medicine and is changing American life. It is an ageless story of the battle between good and evil, with potentially life-changing consequences for everyone, not just the 65 percent of Americans who unscrew a prescription cap every day. An industry with the promise to help so many is now leaving a legacy of needless harm. Melody Petersen covered the pharmaceutical beat for "The New York Times "for four years. In 1997, her investigative reporting won a Gerald Loeb Award, one of the highest honors in business journalism. She lives with her husband in Los Angeles. A Finalist for the Helen Bernstein Book Award for Excellence in Journalism
452 pages, Kindle Edition
First published July 1, 2010
38 people are currently reading
783 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 98 reviews
September 13, 2013
Not sure who pisses me off more: the pharmaceutical marketers or the doctors that write prescriptions - because the pharmaceutical reps have given them pens, blow jobs, or large cash bonuses for doing so.
Maybe it's our fault as Americans for wanting a pill to fix everything.
Our system is broken.
Maybe it's our fault as Americans for wanting a pill to fix everything.
Our system is broken.
December 31, 2009
An eye-opening, if not fair and balanced, book.
Unfortunately, too much time has passed since reading this book for me to make any specific comments, but I do remember that it made a lot of accusations against the pharmaceutical companies about how their profit motivation is working at cross purposes to public health. Rather than work on ground-breaking new meds, they slightly alter existing ones to get a fresh patent and a renewed chance at marketing. Pharma money supports "independant research", and even influences the peer-reviewed journals, which I had thought so trustworthy. Giveaways to doctors can influence their likelihood to prescribe things. And while drug companies aren't allowed to market drugs for things they haven't tested, they manage to "suggest" that doctors prescribe them for all sorts of other things.
This book also addresses the idea of an "invented illness". It's not that it's a made-up symptom that people had not been experiencing. But some people experience that symptom at low levels, and would not think it a problem without the suggestion that it is now an "illness" with an available cure. And often the symptom is caused by something else, so if the underlying nutrition deficiency or whatever were addressed, that symptom would go away as well; instead they take the drugs, and wait for the underlying imbalance to cause other symptoms later.
Additionally, the book alleges that "'the vast majority of drugs--more than 90 percent--only work in 30 or 50 percent of the people', Dr. Allen Roses, a top executive at Glaxo-SmithKline, said at a meeting in London in December 2003." (p. 47) And what is meant by "works"? Only that it be shown more effective than a sugar pill--only that it have some effect on alleviating, not necessarily eradicating the symptom it was designed to address. And that's in studies where the subjects are chosen to be most likely to be helped--excluding the young, the frail, and the elderly, which latter two populations are taking the lion's share of medications in real life.
There are dangers that medications will interact with each other in the patient in a way that they don't in focused trials, where the subjects are not taking multiple meds. There are dangers that the side effects of one drug can be seen as the onset of a new disease ("drug-induced dementia masquerades as Alzheimer's; drug-induced tremors look like the beginning of Parkinson's").
(Note that there is something called the Beers Criteria that lists dangerous medications for elderly people.)
It was all very scary. That said, I suspect there is another side to the story, that would at least soften it. The book made no attempt, for example, to explain why doctors would act the way they do, which it portrayed as often foolish or bribed by the drug companies--I assume that most doctors are reasonably intelligent and believe in good conscience that they are trying to do the best for their patients.
Unfortunately, too much time has passed since reading this book for me to make any specific comments, but I do remember that it made a lot of accusations against the pharmaceutical companies about how their profit motivation is working at cross purposes to public health. Rather than work on ground-breaking new meds, they slightly alter existing ones to get a fresh patent and a renewed chance at marketing. Pharma money supports "independant research", and even influences the peer-reviewed journals, which I had thought so trustworthy. Giveaways to doctors can influence their likelihood to prescribe things. And while drug companies aren't allowed to market drugs for things they haven't tested, they manage to "suggest" that doctors prescribe them for all sorts of other things.
This book also addresses the idea of an "invented illness". It's not that it's a made-up symptom that people had not been experiencing. But some people experience that symptom at low levels, and would not think it a problem without the suggestion that it is now an "illness" with an available cure. And often the symptom is caused by something else, so if the underlying nutrition deficiency or whatever were addressed, that symptom would go away as well; instead they take the drugs, and wait for the underlying imbalance to cause other symptoms later.
Additionally, the book alleges that "'the vast majority of drugs--more than 90 percent--only work in 30 or 50 percent of the people', Dr. Allen Roses, a top executive at Glaxo-SmithKline, said at a meeting in London in December 2003." (p. 47) And what is meant by "works"? Only that it be shown more effective than a sugar pill--only that it have some effect on alleviating, not necessarily eradicating the symptom it was designed to address. And that's in studies where the subjects are chosen to be most likely to be helped--excluding the young, the frail, and the elderly, which latter two populations are taking the lion's share of medications in real life.
There are dangers that medications will interact with each other in the patient in a way that they don't in focused trials, where the subjects are not taking multiple meds. There are dangers that the side effects of one drug can be seen as the onset of a new disease ("drug-induced dementia masquerades as Alzheimer's; drug-induced tremors look like the beginning of Parkinson's").
(Note that there is something called the Beers Criteria that lists dangerous medications for elderly people.)
It was all very scary. That said, I suspect there is another side to the story, that would at least soften it. The book made no attempt, for example, to explain why doctors would act the way they do, which it portrayed as often foolish or bribed by the drug companies--I assume that most doctors are reasonably intelligent and believe in good conscience that they are trying to do the best for their patients.
December 13, 2008
I think everyone in America should read this book. If they did, there would be so much outrage about the way drug companies do business that it would absolutely change the way medicine is practiced in this country. I learned from the book that the marketing departments of drug companies invent diseases and syndromes to sell their products. Marketers ghost-write scientific articles and then pay doctors to be the "authors" of them. Drug companies have no qualms about aggressively marketing to children and the elderly for uses and at doses for which they have not been approved. In fact, they will market drugs that have proven NOT to be more effective than a placebo and will hide the results of the clinical trials that show this. They will even go so far as to ignore or hide known life-threatening side effects of their blockbuster drugs just to continue to make profits. If they have to pay large sums due to law suits or penalties, they just raise the price of their medicines to cover the costs. I was aware of some these things, but to read of the full extent of this is shocking.
I went to hear Melody Petersen speak about her book. She covered the pharmaceutical industry for the New York Times for four years and won a prestigious award for her investigative reporting. Since she is originally from Iowa, she came back and did some of her research here. I was surprised to find as I read that I actually know two of the people who she interviewed for the book. They are indeed who she says they are. I trust her facts.
I would call this the "Fast Food Nation" of the pharmaceutical industry. Anyone who ever sees a doctor or takes any kind of medicine needs to know the truth! PLEASE READ THIS BOOK!
I went to hear Melody Petersen speak about her book. She covered the pharmaceutical industry for the New York Times for four years and won a prestigious award for her investigative reporting. Since she is originally from Iowa, she came back and did some of her research here. I was surprised to find as I read that I actually know two of the people who she interviewed for the book. They are indeed who she says they are. I trust her facts.
I would call this the "Fast Food Nation" of the pharmaceutical industry. Anyone who ever sees a doctor or takes any kind of medicine needs to know the truth! PLEASE READ THIS BOOK!
February 25, 2017
A disturbing but essential read. Incredibly well researched and engaging and approachable. I found I had to take it in small chunks only because I was getting so angry about the widespread abuses and negligence by pharmaceutical companies, doctors, and those who should be regulating to protect patients. My only gripe is that it felt slightly too Iowa-centric but it could be taken as a case study that's nationally relevant. I would hope that the industry has changed since this was published but I am pretty doubtful. Even if this book didn't catalyze industry reforms, it's a valuable weapon as consumers have to fight to protect themselves.
June 27, 2008
The subtitle of the book pretty much says it all: "How the pharmaceutical companies transformed themselves into slick marketing machines and hooked the nation on prescription drugs. Peterson is a first rate investigative reporter who carefully researches and backs up all her claims. At a minimum, this book will make you want to demand that pharmaceutical companies stop advertising to the public, something that is only legal in New Zealand and the United States.
December 4, 2008
The full subtitle of this book is How the Pharmaceutical Companies Transformed Themselves Into Slick Marketing Machines and Hooked the Nation on Prescription Drugs. A thoroughgoing spoiler, it is no more than accurate.
In Our Daily Meds, the author reveals how corporate salesmanship has trumped science inside the biggest pharmaceutical companies, and, in turn, how this promotion-driven industry has taken over the practice of medicine and is radically changing American life -- and American health -- and not for the better. A worthy successor to Vance Packard's The Hidden Persuaders (1957), The Waste Makers (1960), The Status Seekers (1959), Our Endangered Children (1983), and The People Shapers (1977) (for more on which, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vance_Pa...), and John Keats' The Insolent Chariots (1959), whose message is, if anything, far more urgent than these earlier exposes because of the pernicious effects upon our health and well-being of so many modern prescription drugs, Our Daily Meds is a devastating and often shocking critique of a once-honorable industry that corporate greed has converted into a vast marketing machine that is often a real menace to our health. Peterson supports her indictment of that industry with an abundance of fascinating details and examples of the real harm inflicted on individuals by the products of that industry. An outstanding contribution to the growing public demand for better regulation of an industry that has become far too powerful and heedless of the harm it is doing to the public, this book should be read by everyone who cares about their health.
In the last thirty years, the pharmaceutical corporations have transformed themselves into snake-oil marketing machines, vending dangerous medications as if they were soft drinks or top-of-the-line cars. They package video games and soft cuddly toys for children with their products, publicize their wares in churches and subways, NASCAR races and state fairs. They've become experts at instilling fear of disease in us, to make it possible to sell us hope, and there is no indication that they've come anywhere near the bottom of the ethical and moral barrel when it comes to pitching their products.
Yes, drugs certainly can save lives, and frequently do. But the remorseless marketing that has made so many corporate executives wealthy and sent stock prices into the stratosphere has come with horrifying hidden costs. Prescription drugs taken as directed by doctors have been estimated to kill one American every five minutes -- which figure doesn't even factor in what happens as the overmedicated climb into their cars and trucks and boats, or get aboard their motorcycles, and head out for a spectacular encounter with fate and those unfortunate enough to share the roadways and waterways with them.
Dante -- okay, I admit it, he's one of my favorite authors and wise men -- has several places in his Inferno for people like those who increasingly dictate the policies of the pharmaceutical industry, e.g., Bolgia 8 of the 8th Circle, that of the Evil Counselors; Bolgia 10 of the 8th Circle, that of the Falsifiers, i.e., those who sell lethal and insidious poisons labeled as beneficial commodities; and the 9th Circle, Cocytus, take your pick as to which round. The bloated, profit-driven pharmaceutical industry has become a monster battening on our collective anxieties, social needs, and health-related fears, a cause of ill-health and death rather than a provider of life and well-being. It's high time the bastards were reined in. Unfortunately, it can't be done at an individual level, because without detailed information on what has gone wrong with the industry and what it's costing us all, the average person can't make an informed decision even as to what medications to avoid, let alone how to fight back. In fact, many Americans have no idea that things have gotten so bad, not because they are stupid and ignorant, but because of the way information is transmitted through social networks in huge nations like America, and the way the media manipulate the news to play down the harm the pharmaceutical industry does even while they promote the industry's products. Only the FDA is in a position to know exactly what's going on in the industry -- and they do. But though there are numerous laws on the books the intent of which is to protect the public from such gross, cosdtly, and deadly betrayal of public trust, those laws are badly enforced if at all -- there's no real teeth in them. There exists no agency that can effectively enforce those laws, and our legislators don't realize the need for such an agency . . . or have been bought off by, you guessed it, the pharmaceutical industry. Please share Our Daily Meds with everyone you care about -- it could save their lives. And tell them to write to or email their elected representatives demanding that something effective be done about the pharmaceutical industry's horrifying betrayal of public trust, our health, and, above all, our children.
In Our Daily Meds, the author reveals how corporate salesmanship has trumped science inside the biggest pharmaceutical companies, and, in turn, how this promotion-driven industry has taken over the practice of medicine and is radically changing American life -- and American health -- and not for the better. A worthy successor to Vance Packard's The Hidden Persuaders (1957), The Waste Makers (1960), The Status Seekers (1959), Our Endangered Children (1983), and The People Shapers (1977) (for more on which, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vance_Pa...), and John Keats' The Insolent Chariots (1959), whose message is, if anything, far more urgent than these earlier exposes because of the pernicious effects upon our health and well-being of so many modern prescription drugs, Our Daily Meds is a devastating and often shocking critique of a once-honorable industry that corporate greed has converted into a vast marketing machine that is often a real menace to our health. Peterson supports her indictment of that industry with an abundance of fascinating details and examples of the real harm inflicted on individuals by the products of that industry. An outstanding contribution to the growing public demand for better regulation of an industry that has become far too powerful and heedless of the harm it is doing to the public, this book should be read by everyone who cares about their health.
In the last thirty years, the pharmaceutical corporations have transformed themselves into snake-oil marketing machines, vending dangerous medications as if they were soft drinks or top-of-the-line cars. They package video games and soft cuddly toys for children with their products, publicize their wares in churches and subways, NASCAR races and state fairs. They've become experts at instilling fear of disease in us, to make it possible to sell us hope, and there is no indication that they've come anywhere near the bottom of the ethical and moral barrel when it comes to pitching their products.
Yes, drugs certainly can save lives, and frequently do. But the remorseless marketing that has made so many corporate executives wealthy and sent stock prices into the stratosphere has come with horrifying hidden costs. Prescription drugs taken as directed by doctors have been estimated to kill one American every five minutes -- which figure doesn't even factor in what happens as the overmedicated climb into their cars and trucks and boats, or get aboard their motorcycles, and head out for a spectacular encounter with fate and those unfortunate enough to share the roadways and waterways with them.
Dante -- okay, I admit it, he's one of my favorite authors and wise men -- has several places in his Inferno for people like those who increasingly dictate the policies of the pharmaceutical industry, e.g., Bolgia 8 of the 8th Circle, that of the Evil Counselors; Bolgia 10 of the 8th Circle, that of the Falsifiers, i.e., those who sell lethal and insidious poisons labeled as beneficial commodities; and the 9th Circle, Cocytus, take your pick as to which round. The bloated, profit-driven pharmaceutical industry has become a monster battening on our collective anxieties, social needs, and health-related fears, a cause of ill-health and death rather than a provider of life and well-being. It's high time the bastards were reined in. Unfortunately, it can't be done at an individual level, because without detailed information on what has gone wrong with the industry and what it's costing us all, the average person can't make an informed decision even as to what medications to avoid, let alone how to fight back. In fact, many Americans have no idea that things have gotten so bad, not because they are stupid and ignorant, but because of the way information is transmitted through social networks in huge nations like America, and the way the media manipulate the news to play down the harm the pharmaceutical industry does even while they promote the industry's products. Only the FDA is in a position to know exactly what's going on in the industry -- and they do. But though there are numerous laws on the books the intent of which is to protect the public from such gross, cosdtly, and deadly betrayal of public trust, those laws are badly enforced if at all -- there's no real teeth in them. There exists no agency that can effectively enforce those laws, and our legislators don't realize the need for such an agency . . . or have been bought off by, you guessed it, the pharmaceutical industry. Please share Our Daily Meds with everyone you care about -- it could save their lives. And tell them to write to or email their elected representatives demanding that something effective be done about the pharmaceutical industry's horrifying betrayal of public trust, our health, and, above all, our children.
January 27, 2024
Interesting (?) perspective, pretty outdated … thought provoking read for those in the healthcare / pharma industries
September 12, 2012
It's been a long, long time since I felt so actively hostile toward a book and its author. I'm not sure why exactly that is. Rather, the reasons for hostility are so many and so varied I don't know if it's possible to sort them out. Mostly, I think that, as a person with a probably greater than average interest in non-pharmaceutical health-maintenance, I expected this book to be somewhat more solution-forward, rather than just a giant horror show of evil people concluding with 19 demands for government intervention.
Petersen's writing is evocative, but her arguments are repetitive, lame, and inconclusive. As I finished the book this morning, one of the last stories she told was of the awful grief a woman felt when her sister died of cardiac events that may or may not have been caused by taking Vioxx. Vioxx was, in fact, pulled from the market several years after that particular death for increasing the chances of cardiac events. Petersen notes not the studies that led to the pull, but the original tests on humans which concluded--and she gives no notes on methodologies or error rates-- that 4 out of every 1000 people showed a cardiac event risk-increase. And that brought it all home for me. In Petersen's world, that 9,996 people might live decades of their life pain free cannot possibly make up for the 4 who may or may not experience greater risk for that greater benefit.
Was the entire book written this way? No. Most of the stories were not about grieving siblings or family members. Most of the stories were about regular people who believed their doctors, or their televisions, or their Sunday circulars. But more than that, they were about people who were, UNIVERSALLY, too stupid to question any of those things. And those that weren't too stupid were proved, time and again, 1000% of the time, to be "old and frail" or "young and easily duped" such that, even those with brains enough to question their doctors, or Big Pharma, were so wholly without agency that bothering to do so would barely occur to them let alone be possible.
Petersen didn't write a monograph. She raked a bunch of muck. For a book published in 2008, when almost nobody was ignorant of lifestyle diseases, lifestyle disease markers, or the contributions of things like environment, diet, and activity level to disease, she devotes two paragraphs to noting that many people wouldn't need medication if they changed their diet and increased their exercise. In fact, in the penultimate chapter, where she details a man whose Type II Diabetes medicine left him with a liver transplant, she actually says that most doctors will never tell their type 2 patients to change their diet or exercise because they assume they can't and they won't. On behalf of fat people everywhere, I call bullshit all over that, for all time.
Nobody with basic reasoning skills thinks pills are magic, doctors are perfect, and pharma is altruistic. Nobody. Yet instead of taking a nuanced look at what the real problems were (obtuse regulation, off-label prescription, individual greed and apathy, to name but a few), Petersen wrote a book where ALL pharm employees are greed and evil, ALL doctors are craven and avaricious, and ALL Americans are stupid and lazy. Unless you'd really like to read about book about the worst way to package an argument such that your basic built-in audience has to disagree with you because you're so aggressively hostile, don't just pass. Run the other way and snatch it out of your friends' hands, like you would a purloined Adderall.
p.s. I'm from Iowa, too. We are not, in fact, America's favorite grotesquely stupid sheeple.
Petersen's writing is evocative, but her arguments are repetitive, lame, and inconclusive. As I finished the book this morning, one of the last stories she told was of the awful grief a woman felt when her sister died of cardiac events that may or may not have been caused by taking Vioxx. Vioxx was, in fact, pulled from the market several years after that particular death for increasing the chances of cardiac events. Petersen notes not the studies that led to the pull, but the original tests on humans which concluded--and she gives no notes on methodologies or error rates-- that 4 out of every 1000 people showed a cardiac event risk-increase. And that brought it all home for me. In Petersen's world, that 9,996 people might live decades of their life pain free cannot possibly make up for the 4 who may or may not experience greater risk for that greater benefit.
Was the entire book written this way? No. Most of the stories were not about grieving siblings or family members. Most of the stories were about regular people who believed their doctors, or their televisions, or their Sunday circulars. But more than that, they were about people who were, UNIVERSALLY, too stupid to question any of those things. And those that weren't too stupid were proved, time and again, 1000% of the time, to be "old and frail" or "young and easily duped" such that, even those with brains enough to question their doctors, or Big Pharma, were so wholly without agency that bothering to do so would barely occur to them let alone be possible.
Petersen didn't write a monograph. She raked a bunch of muck. For a book published in 2008, when almost nobody was ignorant of lifestyle diseases, lifestyle disease markers, or the contributions of things like environment, diet, and activity level to disease, she devotes two paragraphs to noting that many people wouldn't need medication if they changed their diet and increased their exercise. In fact, in the penultimate chapter, where she details a man whose Type II Diabetes medicine left him with a liver transplant, she actually says that most doctors will never tell their type 2 patients to change their diet or exercise because they assume they can't and they won't. On behalf of fat people everywhere, I call bullshit all over that, for all time.
Nobody with basic reasoning skills thinks pills are magic, doctors are perfect, and pharma is altruistic. Nobody. Yet instead of taking a nuanced look at what the real problems were (obtuse regulation, off-label prescription, individual greed and apathy, to name but a few), Petersen wrote a book where ALL pharm employees are greed and evil, ALL doctors are craven and avaricious, and ALL Americans are stupid and lazy. Unless you'd really like to read about book about the worst way to package an argument such that your basic built-in audience has to disagree with you because you're so aggressively hostile, don't just pass. Run the other way and snatch it out of your friends' hands, like you would a purloined Adderall.
p.s. I'm from Iowa, too. We are not, in fact, America's favorite grotesquely stupid sheeple.
September 26, 2012
When you boil it all down, this book was terrifying. You know all of the food books out that are making people take a second look at what they eat? I think books taking a closer look at drug companies should be the next big thing.
There are so many aspects of this book that terrify me. I’m scared of how doctors are swayed into prescribing drugs for ailments they haven’t been tested for. I’m scared of how medicated kids are. I’m scared about people who drive under the influence of multiple prescription drugs and the people who die because of adverse reactions between two or more of their medications. I’m scared of antibiotics in our water supply. I could go on forever with this.
While Petersen’s book points out a ton of really troubling issues, her conclusion offers some solid pointers for how people can become advocates for their own health. We grow up placing our trust in medical professionals, but sadly, we’re now in a place where even our trusted doctors are influenced by the fancy perks of helping out pharmaceutical companies. Patients should feel free to ask their doctors outright if they are on the payroll for any pharmaceutical company, and to get a second or third opinion. In the end, we can only be responsible for ourselves and our loved ones and hope that our pressure will create more effective checks and balances.
There are so many aspects of this book that terrify me. I’m scared of how doctors are swayed into prescribing drugs for ailments they haven’t been tested for. I’m scared of how medicated kids are. I’m scared about people who drive under the influence of multiple prescription drugs and the people who die because of adverse reactions between two or more of their medications. I’m scared of antibiotics in our water supply. I could go on forever with this.
While Petersen’s book points out a ton of really troubling issues, her conclusion offers some solid pointers for how people can become advocates for their own health. We grow up placing our trust in medical professionals, but sadly, we’re now in a place where even our trusted doctors are influenced by the fancy perks of helping out pharmaceutical companies. Patients should feel free to ask their doctors outright if they are on the payroll for any pharmaceutical company, and to get a second or third opinion. In the end, we can only be responsible for ourselves and our loved ones and hope that our pressure will create more effective checks and balances.
September 25, 2008
I thought I was plenty cynical about Big Pharma. Then I read this book and found that my view was rosy and innocent in the extreme.
It's a damning indictment of the current practices of the industry, including making up diseases which don't exist so they can advertise drugs that don't work, suborning doctors at every turn and worse.
My only quibble with the book is there are parts of it which read like a tabloid, vague and alarmist. The vagueness is more than adequately addressed by the notes in the back, but I would have preferred footnotes. The alarmist tone is no doubt justified, though a bit breathless in spots.
Highly recommended to anyone who may ever be prescribed a drug.
It's a damning indictment of the current practices of the industry, including making up diseases which don't exist so they can advertise drugs that don't work, suborning doctors at every turn and worse.
My only quibble with the book is there are parts of it which read like a tabloid, vague and alarmist. The vagueness is more than adequately addressed by the notes in the back, but I would have preferred footnotes. The alarmist tone is no doubt justified, though a bit breathless in spots.
Highly recommended to anyone who may ever be prescribed a drug.
May 21, 2009
Because of the industry I work in I can verify this book doesn't exaggerate. I've seen it from all sides, patient, drug company and doctor.
The book is very eye opening although I think in addition to pointing a finger at the RX drug industry Americans need to be held accountable for our culture of wanting a pill to solve every little problem when a lot of the time a lifestyle change will help with no side effects which require more drugs.
The book is very eye opening although I think in addition to pointing a finger at the RX drug industry Americans need to be held accountable for our culture of wanting a pill to solve every little problem when a lot of the time a lifestyle change will help with no side effects which require more drugs.
June 7, 2008
Everyone should read this book.
June 8, 2017
Brutal and eye opening. (And this is coming from someone who thought that their eyes were already open.)
November 10, 2018
"I recently bought a boat but had nowhere to put it. So I bought a marina." --Bill Steere, former CEO of Pfizer.
"One nation, under sedation." George Clinton
Americans take more prescription drugs than any other nation, but don't show any benefit in terms of better health or longer life. On the contrary, we suffer from opioid addiction and drug overdoses. Often drugs are prescribed to treat the side effects of other drugs. Overprescription of antibiotics leads to microbial resistance and the need to develop even more antibiotics. The elderly are often misdiagnosed with dementia and other illnesses when their symptoms are no more than adverse effects of their drug regimen. Traffic accidents are often caused by side effects of prescription drugs, and the booming pharmaceutical industry is a huge factor in our rising cost of health care.
By 2007 virtually every major pharmaceutical manufacturer had been charged with fraud at some point.
Drug companies have increased their profits in countless underhanded ways. They repurpose old drugs for more profit and coin terms for "new" diseases that can be used to justify sales of highly profitable drugs (erectile dysfunction for Viagra and bladder urgency for Detrol). They collect personal and medical data as well as information on prescriber habits. Research costs are often exaggerated, and advertising is a bigger part of their budget. Drug companies like to focus on "megablockbusters" like Prilosec, which can represent more than a billion dollars in sales. By focusing on drugs that treat but never cure chronic conditions they guarantee a steady revenue stream. In some cases (Merck, Vioxx) they make a strong and immoral effort to keep dangerous but profitable drugs on the market. They are not above suppressing negative internal data or rigging data to make a drug (e.g. Diflucan) look better than it really is.
Key to Big Pharma profitability is their massive sales force. Free continuing education for health professionals is often their foot in the door, supplemented by gifts, trips and other financial incentives. Drug sales people get large bonuses if the drug they are selling does well. Drug companies encourage their sales reps to push for higher doses and off-label uses with little real data to support their claims. At one point ninety per cent of Neurontin prescriptions were for off-label uses, never approved by the FDA. Direct to consumer advertising, virtually unique to America, has been an effective sales ploy; some ads are even aimed at children. New drugs are tested on a few thousand patients, then marketed aggressively to millions.
Not everyone who sells prescription drugs to the public is readily identifiable as working for the drug companies. Physicians and celebrities are paid undisclosed fees as spokespersons, and "thought leaders" within the medical field are often on the payroll. Drug companies provide "news leaks" to the media of miracle drugs that are "in the pipeline." Publication-ready news stories can find their way into media outlets, along with company-funded research and polls. Even scientific articles are sometimes ghostwritten, ready for unscrupulous doctors to do little more than sign their names and collect a fee.
Against the massive financial and political influence of Big Pharma stands and FDA which is understaffed and sometimes subject to the same revolving door phenomenon that has plagued the SEC. A lack of legitimate head to head comparisons with other drugs in common in pharmaceutical "research." When drug companies engage in fraudulent and even dangerous practices, they pay a fine. CEOs never go to prison, even after the most egregious marketing practices.
The author has some suggestions at the end of the book for ways to counteract the widespread influence of the drug companies, but this reader was discouraged by the sheer size and scope of their influence.
"One nation, under sedation." George Clinton
Americans take more prescription drugs than any other nation, but don't show any benefit in terms of better health or longer life. On the contrary, we suffer from opioid addiction and drug overdoses. Often drugs are prescribed to treat the side effects of other drugs. Overprescription of antibiotics leads to microbial resistance and the need to develop even more antibiotics. The elderly are often misdiagnosed with dementia and other illnesses when their symptoms are no more than adverse effects of their drug regimen. Traffic accidents are often caused by side effects of prescription drugs, and the booming pharmaceutical industry is a huge factor in our rising cost of health care.
By 2007 virtually every major pharmaceutical manufacturer had been charged with fraud at some point.
Drug companies have increased their profits in countless underhanded ways. They repurpose old drugs for more profit and coin terms for "new" diseases that can be used to justify sales of highly profitable drugs (erectile dysfunction for Viagra and bladder urgency for Detrol). They collect personal and medical data as well as information on prescriber habits. Research costs are often exaggerated, and advertising is a bigger part of their budget. Drug companies like to focus on "megablockbusters" like Prilosec, which can represent more than a billion dollars in sales. By focusing on drugs that treat but never cure chronic conditions they guarantee a steady revenue stream. In some cases (Merck, Vioxx) they make a strong and immoral effort to keep dangerous but profitable drugs on the market. They are not above suppressing negative internal data or rigging data to make a drug (e.g. Diflucan) look better than it really is.
Key to Big Pharma profitability is their massive sales force. Free continuing education for health professionals is often their foot in the door, supplemented by gifts, trips and other financial incentives. Drug sales people get large bonuses if the drug they are selling does well. Drug companies encourage their sales reps to push for higher doses and off-label uses with little real data to support their claims. At one point ninety per cent of Neurontin prescriptions were for off-label uses, never approved by the FDA. Direct to consumer advertising, virtually unique to America, has been an effective sales ploy; some ads are even aimed at children. New drugs are tested on a few thousand patients, then marketed aggressively to millions.
Not everyone who sells prescription drugs to the public is readily identifiable as working for the drug companies. Physicians and celebrities are paid undisclosed fees as spokespersons, and "thought leaders" within the medical field are often on the payroll. Drug companies provide "news leaks" to the media of miracle drugs that are "in the pipeline." Publication-ready news stories can find their way into media outlets, along with company-funded research and polls. Even scientific articles are sometimes ghostwritten, ready for unscrupulous doctors to do little more than sign their names and collect a fee.
Against the massive financial and political influence of Big Pharma stands and FDA which is understaffed and sometimes subject to the same revolving door phenomenon that has plagued the SEC. A lack of legitimate head to head comparisons with other drugs in common in pharmaceutical "research." When drug companies engage in fraudulent and even dangerous practices, they pay a fine. CEOs never go to prison, even after the most egregious marketing practices.
The author has some suggestions at the end of the book for ways to counteract the widespread influence of the drug companies, but this reader was discouraged by the sheer size and scope of their influence.
April 4, 2020
This is one of those books which some would turn away from because the comfort of ignorance is easier to accept than the harsh yet truthful reality. This page turner looks at the last 30 years of the pharmaceutical companies and how through using the tactics of tobacco companies and with as much care for the consumer as a drug cartel they went from scientists looking for cures to marketing machines inventing diseases in order to sell the 'cure'. We like to assume that medication is backed by sound science and vigorous trials, that safeguards like the FDA actually safeguard, and that if a doctor prescribes it then it must be safe to take right? Unfortunately the reality of things is far less idyllic and the proof is all around like even when acquired legally and taken as directed prescription medications in America are estimated to be killing one person every 5 minutes and they have a higher addiction rate than cocaine. Excellently researched and sobering this books a no holds barred look into an industry that at some point in our lives we all need and rely upon.
Read
February 14, 2025من نحن - براكسو فارم
نحن مجموعة من المتخصصين في مجال الأدوية ولدينا سجلات ناجحة في إطلاق العلامات التجارية العامة في أسواق الشرق الأوسط.
مهمتنا
عمل منتجات عالية الجودة، وتقديمها من قبل موظفين على درجة عالية من الاحتراف، وبناء علاقات ملتزمة مع عملائنا لتحقيق مجتمع صحي وأنيق للأجيال القادمة.
رؤيتنا
المرضى في أي مكان هم جوهر عملنا، لذلك نحن نبذل قصارى جهدنا لتحقيق حياة صحية لهم.
https://dawaapharmaceuticals.com/ar
نحن مجموعة من المتخصصين في مجال الأدوية ولدينا سجلات ناجحة في إطلاق العلامات التجارية العامة في أسواق الشرق الأوسط.
مهمتنا
عمل منتجات عالية الجودة، وتقديمها من قبل موظفين على درجة عالية من الاحتراف، وبناء علاقات ملتزمة مع عملائنا لتحقيق مجتمع صحي وأنيق للأجيال القادمة.
رؤيتنا
المرضى في أي مكان هم جوهر عملنا، لذلك نحن نبذل قصارى جهدنا لتحقيق حياة صحية لهم.
https://dawaapharmaceuticals.com/ar
October 27, 2025
This is a topic I didn't know much about before reading, so to me, it's somewhat transformative.
I rate a 3 stars because, personally, the book is quite lengthy. Many parts are long and they lost my focus. Sometimes, the writing is a bit too critical.
I rate a 3 stars because, personally, the book is quite lengthy. Many parts are long and they lost my focus. Sometimes, the writing is a bit too critical.
August 29, 2017
every physician should read this.
highly recommend for citizens who see conventional med doctors who are heavily influenced by big pharma. a very sad state for our nation.
highly recommend for citizens who see conventional med doctors who are heavily influenced by big pharma. a very sad state for our nation.
March 5, 2019
Startling how little we as the pawns in the game really know.
March 22, 2019
Interesting read about the pharmaceutical industry. Eye opening.
November 16, 2021
Interesting book
Boring to read in my opinion
Would be a cool documentary
Boring to read in my opinion
Would be a cool documentary
January 2, 2024
Feels a bit dated now but otherwise a great reading experience. Excellent research has unearthed all manner of interesting, shameful tidbits.
January 8, 2010
Yesterday, I was scanning a file I keep of books people on discussion lists have mentioned. Scanning the books at the indie book store, I spied a book on my list: Our Daily Meds by Christine Petersen.
I just finished the first couple of chapters and this book is awesome. It's about the way the pharmaceutical industry and physicians end up creating maladies that can be treated with drugs that are not proven to be especially effective -- sometimes depression medication is no more effective than the placebo, which I've heard before.
I had heard plenty about the ridiculous marketing that goes on, and even understood it first hand. (snipped story for brevity) Petersen's book focuses mainly on the era after the late 80s/early 90s, when the HMOs emerged to rein in medical spending. Everyone at the time wondered what would happen, sociologically speaking, to physicians who were being treated as if they were no more than worker cogs in the vast HMO machine. There were horror stories of HMOs deciding treatment plans, undermining physicians' treatment plans, and one outraged physician after another.
What no one wondered in sociological circles that I traveled was what would happen once doctor's paychecks declined b/c of the HMO effect. (there was some naive assumption that doctors with their ethics code and professionalism would fight HMOs so they could treat people properly. Apparently: fat chance to that.)
Instead, what happened was that physicians became targets of big pharma. They started paying them 'consulting fees' to become consultants for the company, traveling to conferences, small gatherings, wherever doctor's gathered in order to pitch their sponsor's drugs. They were rewarded on the basis of their prescription rates, with some companies outright paying for things like brand new offices for a doctor just because he had a great prescription track record and indicated there was more where that came from.
Petersen writes about the crappy testing procedures where you don't have to prove anything much to get a drug approved. Oh, they worry about side effects, but apparently it is cake to get a drug approved even if only 30% of patients are actually helped by the drug. Even if all they do is show it's better than a sugar pills, they can do enough testing to find the 2 clinical trials that show that the drug is better than the placebo. Whee!
One drug, for over active bladder -- a malady Petersen convincingly argues was wholly fabricated by the pharma companies -- was well known for causing people to hallucinate and, basically, lose their minds. Some people were diagnosed with Alzheimer's. Turns out that, especially in elderly folks (who happen to be more incontinent), the drug causes the onset of Alzheimer's-like disease.
Nice, huh?
so, the pharmaceutical industry creates maladies and diseases, treats them with drugs that are ineffective and/or repackaged and higher priced versions of one that already exists or offers no improvements on drugs that already exist. Then, those drugs actually cause new problems. People who take heartburn medication end up having high blood pressure which gets treated with statin drugs which have still more side effects.
Christ, I thought it was a crime when my mother in law was prescribed 17 different kinds of meds. Apparently, that was old school Today, the elderly have an average of 30 prescriptions each year.
This is a fucked up country. These pharma companies are making something like an 18% profit. This is unheard of in other industries. I have forgotten the stats, but the cost of actually creating a drug is something like 15% of the cost of the drug. And then she ran some numbers to indicate that even after r&d, marketing, etc. they still had plenty of money.
I will continue to read this book and report more, but give a shot. It will be hard to read I suppose if you are on medication. It can be scary to learn how many side effects there are. It will also be controversial because so many people feel they have been helped by drugs that have been found to be ineffective for most people or found to be horribly over-prescribed.
E.g., ambien is really dangerous. It can cause people to do crazy things like walk in their sleep, eat an entire loaf of bread in their sleep, even get in their cars and drive -- and not remember any of it. It also causes some people to lose their memories and slowly lose their minds. It is also wicked addictive and should never been taken for more than a few days at a time. And yet the marketing downplays this and even subverts this knowledge, which is provided in the adverts and commercials -- but is, again, subverted by the very text and mis en scene of the commercial. It can also cause withdrawal insomnia, worse than the insomnia the person had that was the impetus for the 'script in the first place.
Crazy!
I'm going to go read more, but do enjoy this book if you get a chance.
I just finished the first couple of chapters and this book is awesome. It's about the way the pharmaceutical industry and physicians end up creating maladies that can be treated with drugs that are not proven to be especially effective -- sometimes depression medication is no more effective than the placebo, which I've heard before.
I had heard plenty about the ridiculous marketing that goes on, and even understood it first hand. (snipped story for brevity) Petersen's book focuses mainly on the era after the late 80s/early 90s, when the HMOs emerged to rein in medical spending. Everyone at the time wondered what would happen, sociologically speaking, to physicians who were being treated as if they were no more than worker cogs in the vast HMO machine. There were horror stories of HMOs deciding treatment plans, undermining physicians' treatment plans, and one outraged physician after another.
What no one wondered in sociological circles that I traveled was what would happen once doctor's paychecks declined b/c of the HMO effect. (there was some naive assumption that doctors with their ethics code and professionalism would fight HMOs so they could treat people properly. Apparently: fat chance to that.)
Instead, what happened was that physicians became targets of big pharma. They started paying them 'consulting fees' to become consultants for the company, traveling to conferences, small gatherings, wherever doctor's gathered in order to pitch their sponsor's drugs. They were rewarded on the basis of their prescription rates, with some companies outright paying for things like brand new offices for a doctor just because he had a great prescription track record and indicated there was more where that came from.
Petersen writes about the crappy testing procedures where you don't have to prove anything much to get a drug approved. Oh, they worry about side effects, but apparently it is cake to get a drug approved even if only 30% of patients are actually helped by the drug. Even if all they do is show it's better than a sugar pills, they can do enough testing to find the 2 clinical trials that show that the drug is better than the placebo. Whee!
One drug, for over active bladder -- a malady Petersen convincingly argues was wholly fabricated by the pharma companies -- was well known for causing people to hallucinate and, basically, lose their minds. Some people were diagnosed with Alzheimer's. Turns out that, especially in elderly folks (who happen to be more incontinent), the drug causes the onset of Alzheimer's-like disease.
Nice, huh?
so, the pharmaceutical industry creates maladies and diseases, treats them with drugs that are ineffective and/or repackaged and higher priced versions of one that already exists or offers no improvements on drugs that already exist. Then, those drugs actually cause new problems. People who take heartburn medication end up having high blood pressure which gets treated with statin drugs which have still more side effects.
Christ, I thought it was a crime when my mother in law was prescribed 17 different kinds of meds. Apparently, that was old school Today, the elderly have an average of 30 prescriptions each year.
This is a fucked up country. These pharma companies are making something like an 18% profit. This is unheard of in other industries. I have forgotten the stats, but the cost of actually creating a drug is something like 15% of the cost of the drug. And then she ran some numbers to indicate that even after r&d, marketing, etc. they still had plenty of money.
I will continue to read this book and report more, but give a shot. It will be hard to read I suppose if you are on medication. It can be scary to learn how many side effects there are. It will also be controversial because so many people feel they have been helped by drugs that have been found to be ineffective for most people or found to be horribly over-prescribed.
E.g., ambien is really dangerous. It can cause people to do crazy things like walk in their sleep, eat an entire loaf of bread in their sleep, even get in their cars and drive -- and not remember any of it. It also causes some people to lose their memories and slowly lose their minds. It is also wicked addictive and should never been taken for more than a few days at a time. And yet the marketing downplays this and even subverts this knowledge, which is provided in the adverts and commercials -- but is, again, subverted by the very text and mis en scene of the commercial. It can also cause withdrawal insomnia, worse than the insomnia the person had that was the impetus for the 'script in the first place.
Crazy!
I'm going to go read more, but do enjoy this book if you get a chance.
July 14, 2010
Read this book, even though it may sicken you.
Not so long ago pharmaceutical companies were noble enterprises dedicated to science, to medical research, to finding cures for disease.
Our Daily Meds is a highly readable chronicle of how drug companies turned themselves into powerful marketers dedicated to persuading you to take their pills every day for the rest of your life, even if those pills don't help you and may kill you. The book carefully documents the industry's shadiest practices, often using executive's own words from interviews, trade conferences, and internal memos and emails.
Companies medicalize normal conditions so they can sell drugs to "treat" them; they invent diseases.
They expertly craft drug trials to skew the results towards favorable outcomes. Studies that show their drug is little or no more effective than sugar pills, is less effective than cheaper existing treatments, or has serious harmful side effects are quietly buried and never published.
They pay doctors to claim authorship of glowing articles ghostwritten by the company's marketing consultants, to make untrue claims about effectiveness and safety that the companies themselves can't legally make, and to persuade them to prescribe their drugs, even for conditions for which they are not approved, and to prescribe more drugs to counteract the side effects of the first drugs.
They spend vast sums on product launch and direct-to-consumer advertising, calculating that they can reap blockbuster profits before the drug injures or kills enough patients that they have to withdraw it.
Our Daily Meds illustrates the above practices with dozens of examples, including: Adderall, Ambien, Aricpet, Baycol, Bextra, Claritin, Detrol, Diflucan, Fen-phen, Neurontin, Paxil, Prempro, Propulsid, Ritalin, Thalidomide, Vioxx, and Zelnorm, to name but a few. Recent news articles about Avandia and Flibanserin show that these practices continue.
In 1980 Americans spent more on each of housing, food, and transportation than on medical care. Today it's the other way around. Yet despite spending more per capita on medical care than any other country on the planet, longevity has dropped relative to the rest of the world. Our Daily Meds concludes with suggestions about how to improve America's health care system.
Not so long ago pharmaceutical companies were noble enterprises dedicated to science, to medical research, to finding cures for disease.
Our Daily Meds is a highly readable chronicle of how drug companies turned themselves into powerful marketers dedicated to persuading you to take their pills every day for the rest of your life, even if those pills don't help you and may kill you. The book carefully documents the industry's shadiest practices, often using executive's own words from interviews, trade conferences, and internal memos and emails.
Companies medicalize normal conditions so they can sell drugs to "treat" them; they invent diseases.
They expertly craft drug trials to skew the results towards favorable outcomes. Studies that show their drug is little or no more effective than sugar pills, is less effective than cheaper existing treatments, or has serious harmful side effects are quietly buried and never published.
They pay doctors to claim authorship of glowing articles ghostwritten by the company's marketing consultants, to make untrue claims about effectiveness and safety that the companies themselves can't legally make, and to persuade them to prescribe their drugs, even for conditions for which they are not approved, and to prescribe more drugs to counteract the side effects of the first drugs.
They spend vast sums on product launch and direct-to-consumer advertising, calculating that they can reap blockbuster profits before the drug injures or kills enough patients that they have to withdraw it.
Our Daily Meds illustrates the above practices with dozens of examples, including: Adderall, Ambien, Aricpet, Baycol, Bextra, Claritin, Detrol, Diflucan, Fen-phen, Neurontin, Paxil, Prempro, Propulsid, Ritalin, Thalidomide, Vioxx, and Zelnorm, to name but a few. Recent news articles about Avandia and Flibanserin show that these practices continue.
In 1980 Americans spent more on each of housing, food, and transportation than on medical care. Today it's the other way around. Yet despite spending more per capita on medical care than any other country on the planet, longevity has dropped relative to the rest of the world. Our Daily Meds concludes with suggestions about how to improve America's health care system.
February 7, 2016
Americans spend more on medical treatment today than they do on housing, food, transportation, or anything else. This was not the case in 1980, when medical cost barley made the list of a household's top 5 expenses.
Taxpayers covered nearly 1/2 the country's heath care tab in 2005. By the time the medical bills had been tailed in 2005, the nation had spent an average $6,777 for each person, or $26,800 for a household of 4. By 2015 Americans will surrender 20% to the pharmaceutical industry & the rest of the nations medical system.
Between 1980 & 2003 the amount spent yearly by Americans on prescription drugs rose from $12 billion to $197 billion. While Americans doubled their spending on new autos between those years & tripled what they paid for clothing, they increased their spending on prescription drugs by 17 times.
1980 a 65 woman had an expected lifespan longer than almost anywhere else in the world. By 2002, in a list of the longevity in 30 nations, she came in 17th. The average 65 man can now expect a shorter life than a man his age in Mexico.
Obesity can take off a decade of a person's life span. Researchers in 2005 reported that the nation's growing epidemic of obesity may soon cause life expectancies to decline.
The roads have become less safe as more drivers are impaired by the effects of the prescription drugs they take. Children trade prescription drugs in the schoolyard the way students of an earlier generation traded cigarettes.
No one knows how many Americans are buried without families knowing they were killed by prescription drugs. Hospitals were once required to do autopsies on @ least 20% of patients who died within their walls. They should be required to do so again.
Stop physicians from taking the drug money. Nearly 95% of American physicians now line their pockets with corporate lucre.
https://projects.propublica.org/docdo...
Taxpayers covered nearly 1/2 the country's heath care tab in 2005. By the time the medical bills had been tailed in 2005, the nation had spent an average $6,777 for each person, or $26,800 for a household of 4. By 2015 Americans will surrender 20% to the pharmaceutical industry & the rest of the nations medical system.
Between 1980 & 2003 the amount spent yearly by Americans on prescription drugs rose from $12 billion to $197 billion. While Americans doubled their spending on new autos between those years & tripled what they paid for clothing, they increased their spending on prescription drugs by 17 times.
1980 a 65 woman had an expected lifespan longer than almost anywhere else in the world. By 2002, in a list of the longevity in 30 nations, she came in 17th. The average 65 man can now expect a shorter life than a man his age in Mexico.
Obesity can take off a decade of a person's life span. Researchers in 2005 reported that the nation's growing epidemic of obesity may soon cause life expectancies to decline.
The roads have become less safe as more drivers are impaired by the effects of the prescription drugs they take. Children trade prescription drugs in the schoolyard the way students of an earlier generation traded cigarettes.
No one knows how many Americans are buried without families knowing they were killed by prescription drugs. Hospitals were once required to do autopsies on @ least 20% of patients who died within their walls. They should be required to do so again.
Stop physicians from taking the drug money. Nearly 95% of American physicians now line their pockets with corporate lucre.
https://projects.propublica.org/docdo...
November 13, 2010
It's much more biased than I like, especially for such an important topic. The first example the author introduces of profit-driven pharmaceuticals is eflornithine/Vaniqa. The author describes how eflorinthine saved African patients from sleeping sickness, until the drug companies pulled it out as it was not profitable enough, and marketed it in the U.S. as a cream for hirsute women, which made them much more money. The book stops there. It doesn't tell me, where the surprisingly and consistently unbiased Wikipedia tells me that after international pressure, the drug company Aventis partnered with the World Health Organization and distributed the sleeping sickness version of the drug. "From 2001 (when production was restarted) through 2006, 14 million diagnoses were made. This greatly contributed to stemming the spread of sleeping sickness, and to saving nearly 110,000 lives. This changed the epidemiological profile of the disease, meaning that eliminating it altogether can now be envisaged." It would have been nice if the author mentioned this. For a criticism to be clear and fair, you have to weigh the bad and the good.
Giving it a one-star rating for fear-mongering. And, abandoning reading it to the end.
Giving it a one-star rating for fear-mongering. And, abandoning reading it to the end.
August 14, 2013
Create a disease and then market the medicine. It's all about marketing. Marketers - not scientists rule! The first created disease was GERD. It was created by Glaxo along with its solution ranitidine in 1981. By 1988 Zantac (ranitidine) was the biggest selling prescription drug in the world. Melody Peterson in this very interesting book talks about this on pages 134-141 (Chapter 5).
She actually begins the story with the created disease "overactive bladder" and its solution - Detrol which began in 1999. This idea of a created disease comes directly from a presentation slide presented by Neil Wolf (VP of Pharmacia bought out by Pfizer in 2002) at a large Pharmaceutical Marketing Global Summit held in Philadelphia in 2003.The screen reads "Positioning Detrol ( Creating a Disease)" ( page 16).
To learn more get the book. To watch the video go here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLqmQ...
She actually begins the story with the created disease "overactive bladder" and its solution - Detrol which began in 1999. This idea of a created disease comes directly from a presentation slide presented by Neil Wolf (VP of Pharmacia bought out by Pfizer in 2002) at a large Pharmaceutical Marketing Global Summit held in Philadelphia in 2003.The screen reads "Positioning Detrol ( Creating a Disease)" ( page 16).
To learn more get the book. To watch the video go here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLqmQ...
November 30, 2008
This book was really shocking and horrifying, but every American should read it. I was shocked by how unsafe and ineffective medications can be and still recieve FDA approval. I was shocked by the lengths pharmaceutical companies go to to bribe doctors - and that most of what they do is perfectly legal. I was shocked at how the pharmaceutical companies are allowed to have so much influence in medical research that is supposed to be unbiased and objective.
I thought the author made a very convincing case that the influence and power of the pharmaceutical companies is hurting all Americans in many different ways. She offers practical solutions for how we can take back our health care system and make it about health care, not about profits. Every American, especially health care professionals, should read this book.
I thought the author made a very convincing case that the influence and power of the pharmaceutical companies is hurting all Americans in many different ways. She offers practical solutions for how we can take back our health care system and make it about health care, not about profits. Every American, especially health care professionals, should read this book.
January 30, 2018
Fantastic book, very insightful, especially during our current health care "reform", that will undoubtedly lead to a more advantageous health care system for insurance & drug companies (who have several lobbyist's per congressman/woman). My onyl critic, is that being from Iowa, she uses her home state as an example all too often. Also, feels a little extremist sometimes, because she wants people to understand the severity of the situation and do what they can to fix it, or atleast protect themselves. In other words, she sort of aims to "scare you shitless". And appropriately so. The Epilogue also comes with some advice on what you can do not only to change the system, but more importantly how to protect yourself and your family from failing into the traps that are there ... apparent or not. READ THIS book ... a great Non-Fiction read.
July 3, 2008
If you are already the type who watches and respects reportage ala Bill Moyers, PBS's Frontline, etc., then you'll be in the same groove with Ms. .Peterson.
Well told stories within stories, meticulously researched and well-situated in multiple, localized, national, and global controversies.
Perhaps, someday, a 'war crimes' tribunal will be seated to judge the Pharmaceutical Industry.
So close to Sarafem, so far from God.
And if you know of any elderly people first scribed Detrol and then diagnosed with dementia,
read this, get them to a competent physician and hire a lawyer.
As Mr. Zevon sang, "Send money, guns, and lawyers..."
The Pharma Corps got plenty of all of them.
Well told stories within stories, meticulously researched and well-situated in multiple, localized, national, and global controversies.
Perhaps, someday, a 'war crimes' tribunal will be seated to judge the Pharmaceutical Industry.
So close to Sarafem, so far from God.
And if you know of any elderly people first scribed Detrol and then diagnosed with dementia,
read this, get them to a competent physician and hire a lawyer.
As Mr. Zevon sang, "Send money, guns, and lawyers..."
The Pharma Corps got plenty of all of them.
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