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Side Effects: A Prosecutor, a Whistleblower and a Bestselling Antidepressant on Trial
As the mental health reporter for the Boston Globe , Alison Bass's front-page reporting on conflicts of interest in medical research stunned readers, and her series on sexual misconduct among psychiatrists earned a Pulitzer Prize nomination. Now she turns her investigative skills to a controversial case that exposed the increased suicide rates among adolescents taking antidepressants such as Paxil, Prozac, and Zoloft.
Side Effects tells the tale of a gutsy assistant attorney general who, along with an unlikely whistle-blower at an Ivy League university, uncovered evidence of deception behind one of the most successful drug campaigns in history. Paxil was the world's bestselling antidepressant in 2002. Pediatric prescriptions soared, even though there was no proof that the drug performed any better than sugar pills in treating children and adolescents, and the real risks the drugs posed were withheld from the public. The New York State Attorney General's office brought an unprecedented lawsuit against giant manufacturer GlaxoSmithKline, the maker of Paxil, for consumer fraud. The successful suit launched a tidal wave of protest that changed the way drugs are tested, sold, and marketed in this country.
With meticulous research, Alison Bass shows us the underbelly of the pharmaceutical industry. She lays bare the unhealthy ties between the medical establishment, big pharma, and the FDA—relationships that place vulnerable children and adults at risk every day.
Side Effects tells the tale of a gutsy assistant attorney general who, along with an unlikely whistle-blower at an Ivy League university, uncovered evidence of deception behind one of the most successful drug campaigns in history. Paxil was the world's bestselling antidepressant in 2002. Pediatric prescriptions soared, even though there was no proof that the drug performed any better than sugar pills in treating children and adolescents, and the real risks the drugs posed were withheld from the public. The New York State Attorney General's office brought an unprecedented lawsuit against giant manufacturer GlaxoSmithKline, the maker of Paxil, for consumer fraud. The successful suit launched a tidal wave of protest that changed the way drugs are tested, sold, and marketed in this country.
With meticulous research, Alison Bass shows us the underbelly of the pharmaceutical industry. She lays bare the unhealthy ties between the medical establishment, big pharma, and the FDA—relationships that place vulnerable children and adults at risk every day.
260 pages, Hardcover
First published June 17, 2008
22 people are currently reading
340 people want to read
About the author
Alison Bass
5 books13 followersAuthor of Rebecca of Ivanhoe, which tells the story of Rebecca, a beautiful Jewish healer, after she is rescued by Ivanhoe from being burned as a witch in medieval England. This sequel to Sir Walter Scott's classic tale takes up the story of Rebecca in 12th century Spain, where she and her father flee to after her rescue.
Bass, an award-winning journalist, is also the author of ; Side Effects: A Prosecutor, a Whistleblower and a Bestselling Antidepressant on Trial; and Getting Screwed: Sex Workers and the Law. Side Effects won the prestigious Science in Society award from the National Association for Science Writers and its film rights have been optioned.
Bass, an award-winning journalist, is also the author of ; Side Effects: A Prosecutor, a Whistleblower and a Bestselling Antidepressant on Trial; and Getting Screwed: Sex Workers and the Law. Side Effects won the prestigious Science in Society award from the National Association for Science Writers and its film rights have been optioned.
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Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews
February 6, 2012
I simultaneously want to give this book 1 and 5 stars.
+1: The book details the lawsuit brought against GlaxoSmithKline for deliberately suppressing data on the effects of Paxil on children. Specifically, that Paxil (and all SSRI's) cause an increase in suicidal ideation among children and teenagers.
This subject is, of course, deeply personal, since I was a Paxil baby myself. While I was picking blood clots out of my wrist from my failed suicide attempt, Glaxo was raking in cash hand over fist.
Jaded as I am, there were still a few stories that surprised me. For example, did you know that pharmaceutical companies lobbied the FDA intensely in the 1990's to eliminate the requirement for placebo-controlled trials for antidepressants? Probably because placebos account for 82% of the effect of real antidepressants (from a meta-analysis by Irving Kirsch et. al. that includes published and unpublished data). Your drug effect leaves something to be desired, broham.
As a scientist, I find this absolutely appalling. As a snarkist, I'm like, whooo, 3 points on the HAM-D scale, and all I have to give up is my sex drive and my will to live?!? Sign me up!
The book also clearly documents systematic "miscoding" of serious adverse events in clinical trials. There were many cases where a child attempted suicide, but instead of adding that data to the study, they coded it as "noncompliance." Which is to say, they completely omitted that data.
Surprise, surprise: when billions of dollars are on the line, companies can't be trusted to do honest science.
-1: The author clearly has no scientific or medical training whatsoever. Also the writing style is terrible.
The book is just filled with shit like, "the deposition ended pretty much on time at 5:40 p.m."
DO NOT CARE AT ALL; PLEASE DIE FOREVER.
If she took out all the stories related to Rose Firestein's deteriorating eyesight, the book's word count would shrink by 50%.
Sciencewise, it drove me nuts that she called them "isomers" when she meant "enantiomers" and didn't italicize her R's and S's. Additionally, she listed Wellbutrin as an SDRI when it is clearly an NDRI. Also I think she tried to insinuate that Prozac caused suicidal ideation because it's a chloride salt?
In summary: this book both blows and is important. Read it or don't, but please stop feeding SSRIs to your kids.
+1: The book details the lawsuit brought against GlaxoSmithKline for deliberately suppressing data on the effects of Paxil on children. Specifically, that Paxil (and all SSRI's) cause an increase in suicidal ideation among children and teenagers.
This subject is, of course, deeply personal, since I was a Paxil baby myself. While I was picking blood clots out of my wrist from my failed suicide attempt, Glaxo was raking in cash hand over fist.
Jaded as I am, there were still a few stories that surprised me. For example, did you know that pharmaceutical companies lobbied the FDA intensely in the 1990's to eliminate the requirement for placebo-controlled trials for antidepressants? Probably because placebos account for 82% of the effect of real antidepressants (from a meta-analysis by Irving Kirsch et. al. that includes published and unpublished data). Your drug effect leaves something to be desired, broham.
As a scientist, I find this absolutely appalling. As a snarkist, I'm like, whooo, 3 points on the HAM-D scale, and all I have to give up is my sex drive and my will to live?!? Sign me up!
The book also clearly documents systematic "miscoding" of serious adverse events in clinical trials. There were many cases where a child attempted suicide, but instead of adding that data to the study, they coded it as "noncompliance." Which is to say, they completely omitted that data.
Surprise, surprise: when billions of dollars are on the line, companies can't be trusted to do honest science.
-1: The author clearly has no scientific or medical training whatsoever. Also the writing style is terrible.
The book is just filled with shit like, "the deposition ended pretty much on time at 5:40 p.m."
DO NOT CARE AT ALL; PLEASE DIE FOREVER.
If she took out all the stories related to Rose Firestein's deteriorating eyesight, the book's word count would shrink by 50%.
Sciencewise, it drove me nuts that she called them "isomers" when she meant "enantiomers" and didn't italicize her R's and S's. Additionally, she listed Wellbutrin as an SDRI when it is clearly an NDRI. Also I think she tried to insinuate that Prozac caused suicidal ideation because it's a chloride salt?
In summary: this book both blows and is important. Read it or don't, but please stop feeding SSRIs to your kids.
October 14, 2008
very good, clear, readable account of the scandalous suppression of data showing that SSRI antidepressants can lead to impulsive suicidality among adolescents. The drug companies, and some high-profile psychiatry researchers they have bought and paid for, did considerable harm to public health by deliberately hiding, or in one case misrepresenting, studies yielding negative overall results and/or alarming side effects such as the suicide attempts.
She covers the story from a couple of interesting angles, notably a whisteblower at Brown U. who stood up to her bosses, and an assistant attorney general in Eliot Spitzer's New York shop who had the insight to prosecute it as consumer fraud by the drug company.
The only thing I would have liked to see more depth on is the +/- of the overall system that gives rise to this sort of behavior. She shows some of the improvements and regulations coming out of this debacle (top journals now require pre-trial listing of all clinical trials on clinicaltrials.gov, so it's harder to publish selectively the favorable results and harder to make up after the fact what you considered to be the "primary" measures of treatment effect), but there isn't much on how this gets started.
Seems as though as long as we have for-profit drug companies, and universities allow faculty to make (a lot of, in some cases) money consulting for them, the incentives to fudge the truth will be there. You could argue those same conditions are responsible for the innovation that comes out of medical research in this country. So the question would be whether we can get the good (competition, hard work, innovation, new technical developments) without the bad (greed, lying, corruption, selfishness).
That said, as a description of what happened in this case, this is fine long-form journalism.
She covers the story from a couple of interesting angles, notably a whisteblower at Brown U. who stood up to her bosses, and an assistant attorney general in Eliot Spitzer's New York shop who had the insight to prosecute it as consumer fraud by the drug company.
The only thing I would have liked to see more depth on is the +/- of the overall system that gives rise to this sort of behavior. She shows some of the improvements and regulations coming out of this debacle (top journals now require pre-trial listing of all clinical trials on clinicaltrials.gov, so it's harder to publish selectively the favorable results and harder to make up after the fact what you considered to be the "primary" measures of treatment effect), but there isn't much on how this gets started.
Seems as though as long as we have for-profit drug companies, and universities allow faculty to make (a lot of, in some cases) money consulting for them, the incentives to fudge the truth will be there. You could argue those same conditions are responsible for the innovation that comes out of medical research in this country. So the question would be whether we can get the good (competition, hard work, innovation, new technical developments) without the bad (greed, lying, corruption, selfishness).
That said, as a description of what happened in this case, this is fine long-form journalism.
July 25, 2023
Short but good story about the 2004 scrutiny on Paxil in children and suicide ideation. How the pharma company controlled the results.
December 7, 2008
If you always thought that prescription drugs were thoroughly tested for safety and effectiveness before they could be put on the market, if you always thought reputable medical journals published the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth about clinical studies of new drugs, if you always thought doctors can't be bribed by drug companies, then this book will open your eyes. The truth is that the drug companies pay for the clinical trials, that negative results are often twisted, misrepresented or suppressed, that doctors get buckets of money to test and write about drugs and that the side effects and dangers of many lucrative drugs are hidden rather than reported.
Alison Bass's Side Effects focuses on what the drug companies knew but kept hidden about the dangerous side effects of psychiatric drugs when prescribed for adolescents. It's a sorry tale of greed and deception, but also an inspiring tale of the whistleblower and prosecutor who fought to get the truth out and to reform the way medical journals report clinical trials on new drugs. This book almost made me think Tom Cruise was right when he lectured Matt Lauer about the evils and dangers of psychiatric drugs. Who knew???
Alison Bass's Side Effects focuses on what the drug companies knew but kept hidden about the dangerous side effects of psychiatric drugs when prescribed for adolescents. It's a sorry tale of greed and deception, but also an inspiring tale of the whistleblower and prosecutor who fought to get the truth out and to reform the way medical journals report clinical trials on new drugs. This book almost made me think Tom Cruise was right when he lectured Matt Lauer about the evils and dangers of psychiatric drugs. Who knew???
June 15, 2021
Journalism at its finest and an eye opener to anyone who takes prescription medications.
October 29, 2024
picked this up in a charity shop - got a bit boring at times but overall a really shocking read
June 13, 2013
I wasn't super impressed. I don't think it was super well written, kinda jumpy, and didn't flow very well. About halfway through it this topic came up in my college persuasion class, and I met some classmates who honestly believe SSRI's cause a drastic increase in suicidal and homicidal tenancies, and from then on I just saw how many people freak out about antidepressants and it kind of turned me off from the subject. The truth is antidepressants don't cause a big enough increase in suicidal tendencies to cause concern, as this book kinda points out. The only reason it made an case at all is because the pharmaceutical companies failed to disclose increased risk of suicide as a side effect at all... all in all, not a very good book, and I think it would be too easy for readers to get caught up thinking that antidepressants actually cause people to commit suicide. Even the study this book references only shows a 13 out of 1000 patient increase in suicidal thoughts. Antidepressants prevent more trouble than they cause, which is why even AFTER these studies and court cases... Prozac and other SSRI's are some of the best selling psychiatric drugs in the world. All psychiatric medicines carry a LONG list of extremely negative possible side effects, but typically speaking, the conditions they treat are much worse, and well worth the risk of the side effect.
September 17, 2012
This is a true story about a few people who refused to let drug companies get away with fraud. This is an accounting of the actual case brought against GlaxoSmithKline and their contribution to the booming business of SSRI’s Paxil. At times the book reads like a John Grisham novel & you have to remind yourself that this is not fiction. The book is not disappointing but how the case ended is. Oh, Firestein (the lawyer fighting GlaxoSmithKline) won, but in the end the verdict did not go far enough.
Along the way you learn that the drugmakers’ own clinical trial data showed that adults & children taking these antidepressants were at least twice as likely to attempt or commit suicide as those taking a placebo. And the FDA knew this. You will learn how money, lots of it, really is given a higher priority than the health of human beings.
Although this book is enlightening in many ways if you want more info on SSRI’s and the great danger they not only pose but the danger people are in now than there are other, much more informative books such as “The Myth of the Chemical Cure” and “Anatomy of an Epidemic”
Along the way you learn that the drugmakers’ own clinical trial data showed that adults & children taking these antidepressants were at least twice as likely to attempt or commit suicide as those taking a placebo. And the FDA knew this. You will learn how money, lots of it, really is given a higher priority than the health of human beings.
Although this book is enlightening in many ways if you want more info on SSRI’s and the great danger they not only pose but the danger people are in now than there are other, much more informative books such as “The Myth of the Chemical Cure” and “Anatomy of an Epidemic”
October 26, 2010
Five stars for the subject matter, which was both a fascinating and chilling account of how big pharmaceutical companies have coopted the medical research establishment and one of the (relatively small) victories of public advocacy against them; three stars, though, for the writing, which was rather pedestrian. The different strains of the story didn't tie together very well (like the psychiatrist who initially pointed to the problems with Prozac really had very little connection to the NY Attorney General who helped prosecute the case against Glaxo-Kline, etc., and the stories of the adolescents who'd taken Paxil and other SSRIs and then become suicidal were perfunctorily told and somehow not as moving as they should have been) In some ways, this felt like a New Yorker piece that got padded out to book length (there was also a lot of repetition and a great deal of background information about some of the principals that wasn't really relevant to the story but also didn't give them great depth as people either.)
August 8, 2011
'Side Effects' can accommodate wide range of interests. I would recommend it to anyone who's concerned about antipsychotic medicines, academics, pharmaceutical industry, government oversight, litigation, among other issues of interests. It provides detail accounts of the gap between the images of safety these blockbuster drugs created by pharmaceutical industry and the actual data from clinical trials are so wide. Another valuable aspects of the book is the revelation of incompetency and corrupted nature of the whole medical apparatus in the US, including drug companies, the FDA, physicians, academic institutions as well as supposed to be "professional" medical journals. Alison Bass raised critical issues for all of us, and testimonies from various individuals helped us to understand many problems and built-in flaws in the life-cycle of these drugs not as dry/cold figures but as the reality that people's lives are at stake. In addition, all of these serious issues of concerns aside, it's just a great reading.
January 16, 2018
This incredible work of non-fiction reads like a novel with multiple points-of-view, but is all too real. Bass' book presents a troubling account of the ties between governments and pharmaceutical companies. 'Side Effects' tells the tale of governments providing incentives to the industry for testing on children in a bid to improve access to medications for children, but how this has backfired: drugs being tested which were never fit for children anyway, doctors being bribed with enormous payments to sign up their most vulnerable patients (including tens of thousands of dollars for signing up homeless troubled teens) and the over-prescription of strong drugs which carry a hugely elevated risk of self-harm or even death for anything from headaches to anxiety. An absolutely eye-opening, revealing book which you simply need to read to believe. Although the book does not go quite this far, I believe it presents a compelling case for the appropriate funding of universities and research centers using public funds in order to avoid these myriad *avoidable* tragedies.
February 18, 2017
The subject matter is so important and I am glad someone decided to chronicle all of the changes made because of Paxil.However, the writing itself was a little rough. I read an ARC of the book and assuming even half of the writing is the same in the finished form, it comes off as blatantly boring at times. The narration often feels like lists of information interspersed with personal stories about the individuals involved. There is a little too much detail in some sections, which made the book drag on. The writing felt choppy in areas. I think it would have been more effective in a shorter, more coherent format.I think the information is very important and the events described are crucial to bettering mental health. The story itself was well done, but the writing could have been better. Overall, I give it three stars, because the story is such an important one, but the writing just didn't live up to it.
January 17, 2010
A book I picked up after I quit Paxil cold turkey. It's very scary knowing what the drug companies got away with and why at 17 years old I was prescribed a drug for "social anxiety disorder" that should never have been prescribed to me based on FDA regulations and the test results of this drug. I am one of the lucky ones who never truly tried to kill herself (I had thoughts, yes!) - unlike some of the people in this book. If you've ever been on an anti-depressant or know someone who has and just didn't quite understand the way you or that person was behaving... I highly recommend this book!
April 27, 2013
Despite what the Amazon reviews would have you think, this was a good read. Often books with similar subject matter lack a human element that draws you and keeps you flipping through the pages. Side Effects tells an interesting and compelling story through the people who shaped it. The one thing that I did not like was that it was not necessarily in chronological order; still, everything made sense. If you are curious about how the government took a stand in pharmaceutical regulation, this is definitely a good place to start.
October 31, 2008
I've been trying to spread the word about the dangers of SSRIs (Prozac, Wellbutrin, Zoloft, etc) since I read Talking back to Prozac over 10 years ago and since my friend's son committed suicide while on the drug. If you are curious about the incestuous relationship between drug companies, doctors and medical publications you will find this a fascinating, not too dry read. I recommend this to anyone currently taking SSRIs or anyone who knows someone taking them.
February 28, 2013
I struggle with books like this - books that are supposed to fill me with shock and outrage at the horrible things that happen in our country. And yes, some of the information is certainly awful and upsetting. But I feel like it was a very one-sided view of pharmaceuticals and antidepressants. I would have been much more impressed and engaged if there had been more positive information to go along with the (really awful) negatives.
April 22, 2013
This is a true story about antidepressants - the creation of them, how bodies regulate them and how they are sold to the public and doctors. I have worked in mental health research previously and was shocked at the US mechanisms to regulate medicines and how reliant it is on money from pharmaceutical companies. This book was eye opening and I am glad there are lawyers like Firestein in the world to make things better!!
January 7, 2014
I can tell there was a lot of research done for the book, but it was hard to slog through it. It was interesting, but there was a lot of info on the different people involved that didn't add anything to the story. I really didn't need to know the details about one of the Dr.s building a desk and trying to figure out how to get it out of his basement.
Read
November 3, 2008Just skimmed really.
If you're interested in how drug companies and scientists REALLY work.
If you're interested in how drug companies and scientists REALLY work.
November 25, 2008
Amazing expose of sorts about prescription drugs/antidepressants from a variety of angles
February 15, 2009
well worth a read; easy going, interesting and oddly suspenseful to see what happens at the end. lots of disparate pieces come together
March 30, 2012
I wish I was more surprised by the negative stuff in the pharmaceutical/healthcare world. Writing style is just okay...but this book certainly shares some important and interesting information.
Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews