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Selling Sickness!
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First published January 1, 2005
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May 6, 2022
One pill makes you wobbly,
One pill locks your jaw
And the one the doctor gives you
Don’t cure anything at all.
Go ask Jessaka when she’s
Throwing up them all.” ``Jessica
This best seller was written by an award-winning medical journalist and is just what I had been looking for after having a go around with a doctor and heart specialist. My friends told me that they had heard that some doctors, if not many, get paid by the pharmaceutical companies if they get their patients on certain drugs. No one knew where they heard it, so I kept reading different medical books to find what I needed. This book had the answer.
After my doctor could not get me to take blood pressure medication, he sent me to a heart specialist, who also tried and failed. Yet, when taking my blood pressure at home, it was normal unless I took in a lot of salt. Both doctors ignored this, as if to say, What do you know about taking your blood pressure?” The heart doctor didn’t believe that white coat syndrome or salt raised b/p by much. (Yet, both have proved to be my problem. And the heart doctor may or may not have known that the person taking my b/p didn’t know how to take it correctly. Not to mention that taking your b/p after walking into the office raises it some. Well, I wanted to know how my heart was doing at my age anyway or I would not have gone. My EKG and blood work were fine.
Well, this book has given me more power if I ever need it in the future. It has also made me relaxed, but it also is a warning and should be read by everyone. It is not just about b/p, it is about cholesterol, ADHD, anti-depressants and so on. Did you know that the pharmaceutical companies want people to get hooked on drugs? They even make up new illnesses. Have you noticed over the years that the amount of accepted cholesterol l levels has been changed? Women with PMS has been categorized as a psychiatric disorder and so anti-depressants are suggested. Just try to get off some of those drugs.
As for blood pressure, when someone takes it for you, make sure that they take it only on your left arm and make sure that you keep your arm at heart level. This is not in the book but comes from my friend who went to college to become a health educator. Your levels will be ten to twelve points higher if taken incorrectly. Try it at home or at your doctor’s office just to prove the point. Of course, if doing the latter, you may make the person angry. I noticed that the woman taking my b/p at the heart doctor’s office was upset with me because I would not lower my arm, which could have raised my b/p because now I was upset with her.
Moynihan goes into detail for why you may not need blood pressure or choleate medication. You will learn how little they do for you and how much harm the drugs could do. He even brings up the subject of osteoporosis. Years ago, I was diagnosed with it. After learning, by asking questions, that the drug would only increase your bone mass by t percent and learned that this number does not increase each year, I said No to the medication. Years later, I was glad that I had because the drug proved to be very harmful.
Now, no one is telling you to not listen to your doctor, instead, it is important to learn what is happening and to learn how you can heal yourself without drugs, if possible. I have had to do this often in my life when doctors had the wrong answers. So, I would suggest reading this kind of book, other health books and googling “earth clinic” to see how others have cured their health issues. I also get a PDR Print-out of every drug the doctor gives to me. For example, if I had diabetes, I may take the drug given for it, but I would also find ways to deal with it through diet and natural remedies. But, first I would reads the PDR Print-out.
One pill locks your jaw
And the one the doctor gives you
Don’t cure anything at all.
Go ask Jessaka when she’s
Throwing up them all.” ``Jessica
This best seller was written by an award-winning medical journalist and is just what I had been looking for after having a go around with a doctor and heart specialist. My friends told me that they had heard that some doctors, if not many, get paid by the pharmaceutical companies if they get their patients on certain drugs. No one knew where they heard it, so I kept reading different medical books to find what I needed. This book had the answer.
After my doctor could not get me to take blood pressure medication, he sent me to a heart specialist, who also tried and failed. Yet, when taking my blood pressure at home, it was normal unless I took in a lot of salt. Both doctors ignored this, as if to say, What do you know about taking your blood pressure?” The heart doctor didn’t believe that white coat syndrome or salt raised b/p by much. (Yet, both have proved to be my problem. And the heart doctor may or may not have known that the person taking my b/p didn’t know how to take it correctly. Not to mention that taking your b/p after walking into the office raises it some. Well, I wanted to know how my heart was doing at my age anyway or I would not have gone. My EKG and blood work were fine.
Well, this book has given me more power if I ever need it in the future. It has also made me relaxed, but it also is a warning and should be read by everyone. It is not just about b/p, it is about cholesterol, ADHD, anti-depressants and so on. Did you know that the pharmaceutical companies want people to get hooked on drugs? They even make up new illnesses. Have you noticed over the years that the amount of accepted cholesterol l levels has been changed? Women with PMS has been categorized as a psychiatric disorder and so anti-depressants are suggested. Just try to get off some of those drugs.
As for blood pressure, when someone takes it for you, make sure that they take it only on your left arm and make sure that you keep your arm at heart level. This is not in the book but comes from my friend who went to college to become a health educator. Your levels will be ten to twelve points higher if taken incorrectly. Try it at home or at your doctor’s office just to prove the point. Of course, if doing the latter, you may make the person angry. I noticed that the woman taking my b/p at the heart doctor’s office was upset with me because I would not lower my arm, which could have raised my b/p because now I was upset with her.
Moynihan goes into detail for why you may not need blood pressure or choleate medication. You will learn how little they do for you and how much harm the drugs could do. He even brings up the subject of osteoporosis. Years ago, I was diagnosed with it. After learning, by asking questions, that the drug would only increase your bone mass by t percent and learned that this number does not increase each year, I said No to the medication. Years later, I was glad that I had because the drug proved to be very harmful.
Now, no one is telling you to not listen to your doctor, instead, it is important to learn what is happening and to learn how you can heal yourself without drugs, if possible. I have had to do this often in my life when doctors had the wrong answers. So, I would suggest reading this kind of book, other health books and googling “earth clinic” to see how others have cured their health issues. I also get a PDR Print-out of every drug the doctor gives to me. For example, if I had diabetes, I may take the drug given for it, but I would also find ways to deal with it through diet and natural remedies. But, first I would reads the PDR Print-out.
March 20, 2009
I read this book as an assignment for my critical thinking class. Now I have to write an essay critiquing both the validity of the argument and its soundness. So this review is a rough collection of my thoughts on Selling Sickness.
If you are predisposed to accept Moynihan and Cassels' argument--i.e., if you already agree with their position--then this book will merely enhance your disgust for the pharmaceutical industry. However, the book is still a useful educational tool, for it outlines the insidious techniques that drug companies will use to market illness.
Prior to reading this book, I would see television commercials advising me to "talk to my doctor" about one condition or another. I ignored them--I am fortunate enough to be both a young and a healthy person free of concerns about osteoporosis or high blood pressure. I can see how people not in my happy position could be concerned, however, and the drug companies use those commercials to manipulate such concerned persons. So Selling Sickness made me think more about the marketing techniques at work.
If you're on the other side of the fence and support the initiatives of drug companies to produce medicines for new conditions, then make no mistake: Selling Sickness is an argument, not an analysis. It will seem biased. On the whole, I don't think the book is biased. Moynihan and Cassels mention counterarguments and refute them or cite sources that refute them. They could have done better, but at least they do it. Moreover, many of the points that they put forth are valid even if the drug companies are entirely altruistic (which, let's face it: they aren't--capitalism doesn't work that way). We should be informed, and you can't be informed when the advertising and "educational materials" are associated in any way with the drug companies. Even if there is no bias involved, there is still the perception.
I approve of the format of the book. Moynihan and Cassels analyze a particular condition in each chapter. Their narrow scope has a purpose, however; each condition is an example of a particular way in which the drug companies influenced the marketplace. Depression was marketed directly to doctors, whereas irritable bowel syndrome was pushed through the "tame" FDA. These concrete examples strengthen their case, make it easier for people to relate to what they are saying, and provide links to useful data for anyone interested in pursuing the evidence further.
The conclusion is probably the best part of the book. It's here that Moynihan and Cassels manage to redeem themselves for any of the other errors they make in the body of their argument. Their conclusion pulls back on the rhetoric regarding the drug companies' intentions, content to emphasize the need for drug companies to distance themselves--regardless of intent--from the defining of medical conditions and education of doctors, patients, and the public. Anything short of that will introduce the chance of bias, the possibility that the system will fail.
And hey, if you aren't as inclined toward accepting Moynihan and Cassels' argument as I am, then read the book, look at the research, and write a rebuttal. I'll read that too.
If you are predisposed to accept Moynihan and Cassels' argument--i.e., if you already agree with their position--then this book will merely enhance your disgust for the pharmaceutical industry. However, the book is still a useful educational tool, for it outlines the insidious techniques that drug companies will use to market illness.
Prior to reading this book, I would see television commercials advising me to "talk to my doctor" about one condition or another. I ignored them--I am fortunate enough to be both a young and a healthy person free of concerns about osteoporosis or high blood pressure. I can see how people not in my happy position could be concerned, however, and the drug companies use those commercials to manipulate such concerned persons. So Selling Sickness made me think more about the marketing techniques at work.
If you're on the other side of the fence and support the initiatives of drug companies to produce medicines for new conditions, then make no mistake: Selling Sickness is an argument, not an analysis. It will seem biased. On the whole, I don't think the book is biased. Moynihan and Cassels mention counterarguments and refute them or cite sources that refute them. They could have done better, but at least they do it. Moreover, many of the points that they put forth are valid even if the drug companies are entirely altruistic (which, let's face it: they aren't--capitalism doesn't work that way). We should be informed, and you can't be informed when the advertising and "educational materials" are associated in any way with the drug companies. Even if there is no bias involved, there is still the perception.
I approve of the format of the book. Moynihan and Cassels analyze a particular condition in each chapter. Their narrow scope has a purpose, however; each condition is an example of a particular way in which the drug companies influenced the marketplace. Depression was marketed directly to doctors, whereas irritable bowel syndrome was pushed through the "tame" FDA. These concrete examples strengthen their case, make it easier for people to relate to what they are saying, and provide links to useful data for anyone interested in pursuing the evidence further.
The conclusion is probably the best part of the book. It's here that Moynihan and Cassels manage to redeem themselves for any of the other errors they make in the body of their argument. Their conclusion pulls back on the rhetoric regarding the drug companies' intentions, content to emphasize the need for drug companies to distance themselves--regardless of intent--from the defining of medical conditions and education of doctors, patients, and the public. Anything short of that will introduce the chance of bias, the possibility that the system will fail.
And hey, if you aren't as inclined toward accepting Moynihan and Cassels' argument as I am, then read the book, look at the research, and write a rebuttal. I'll read that too.
September 10, 2011
Easy to read book that shows how pharmaceutical companies are deliberately, as the title tells us, turning us into patients. Excellent research, easy to read, it tells us how most hypertensive pills will create more problems than they will solve (and you'd probably do better by exercising more and eating with greater care) - how HRT is dangerous (thank heavens this is reinforced, those drugs are dangerous. I have had not a single menopausal symptom and I suspect it is because I have for years had 1000mg fish oil capsule and 1000mg Vit C every day. It also means I have virtually no wrinkles... Don't go for pills easily especially anything that impacts on the brain.
November 30, 2021
This is a book about how the pharmaceutical companies (Big Pharma) are trying to convince the public that ordinary conditions of life are illnesses that require treatment by drugs. In this way not only ill but also healthy people become their potential customers and Big Pharma can dramatically increase their profits.
At the beginning of the book, Henry Gadsden, Merck’s chief executive, is quoted as saying that it had long been his dream to make drugs for healthy people because then Merck would be able to sell to everyone.
And that is what is happening now, and that is the gist of the book.
For example, we all know it is dangerous to have high blood pressure. But the definition of what constitutes high blood pressure is constantly being revised, and what used to be regarded as normal blood pressure is now defined as “high”, In this way, more and more otherwise healthy people are considered at risk of heart disease, and being pressed to take drugs, much to the glee of big Pharma,
One factor is that the high blood pressure guidelines are written by persons with major conflicts of interest. Many own stocks in a long list of drug companies. One of those involved in writing the guidelines declared financial ties to twenty-one companies.
As regards high cholesterol, these authors are aware of the fact that cholesterol is not “a deadly enemy” but “an essential element of the body’s makeup, and --- vital to life”. But, Dr. Malcolm Kendrick in his books on the subject, points out that high cholesterol does not, as generally thought, and as stated in the present book, cause heart disease (see my review on Kendrick’s book “The great cholesterol con”.)
Kendrick and others point out how it is in fact low cholesterol that is deadly, and that statins, prescribed to lower cholesterol levels, are exceedingly dangerous.
In the book under review, also, the dangers of statins are pointed out, it being revealed that one statin, Baycol, has been removed from the market after being implicated in several deaths.
Another statin, Lipitor, is the world’s top-selling prescription drug, ever.
Sales of statins have soared in later years owing to the fact that the number of people being diagnosed as having “high cholesterol” has grown astronomically; and its definition has been broadened to make more and more healthy people be diagnosed as “sick”.
But, the doctors defining what constitutes high cholesterol and recommending when drugs should be used to treat it, are at the same time paid by the companies making those drugs to speak about and thus promote them.
36 million Americans warrant treatment with statins.
As I have pointed out in another review, extremely high cholesterol levels have been found in women who lived to a ripe old age, while lower levels have been found in women who died earlier, thus showing that, at least in women, high cholesterol does not cause early death.
The worst thing is that these dangerous drugs, statins, are being prescribed to healthy people.
Two important, though rare, side effects of statins are a debilitating muscle-wasting condition, and liver damage. In the case of a new statin, Crestor, kidney failure is also occurring.
Drug companies are instilling the notion that depression is a wide-spread psychiatric disease best treated with a group of drugs including Prozac, Paxil and Zoloft. Prescriptions for these drugs tripled through the 1990s making antidepressants one of the top-selling kinds of drugs and generating huge sales for their makers.
In his book “Deadly psychiatry and Organized Denial”, Peter Gøtzsche demonstrates the deadly dangers of anti-depressants (see my review).
The advantages of these anti-depressants over placebo are modest at best, and their side-effects include sexual problems, severe withdrawal reactions and an increase in suicidal behaviour among the young.
“Psychiatry’s intimate relationship with the pharmaceutical industry has become notorious.”
It has been stated repeatedly that perhaps a third of the population has a mental illness.
Dr. William Narrow looked into a survey dealing with this and found that a lot of those classified as having a mental disorder did not have a clinically significant disorder, i.e. one that warranted treatment.
In the revised estimates, the proportion of people said to be suffering major depression was virtually halved from 10 percent to under 5 percent. And it was likely that the true rates of disorders were significantly lower still. People with mild problems had been included in the original estimates.
The heavily promoted anti-depressants have serious side-effects. Serzone was withdrawn from the market following evidence linking it to hepatitis and liver failure.
Prozac, Paxil and Zoloft can cause “serious sexual difficulties”. With Paxil, 25 percent of those prescribed the drug have “worrisome” withdrawal symptoms. Worst of all they seem to increase the risk of suicidal behaviour and thinking among children and adolescents.
And for almost all the drugs there was no evidence that the anti-depressants worked any better than a placebo.
“The most natural and normal processes of life are being sold as medical conditions to be treated with drugs.”
There has been a massive marketing campaign promoting the “dangers” of the menopause and the “promise” of hormone pills.
Advertisements threaten post-menopausal women with coming to suffer from “Alzheimer’s, heart attacks, colon cancer, cataracts, teeth loss, night sweats, vaginal dryness, bone fractures, and more”.
I myself had no menopausal symptoms, except a few hot flashes which I experienced as extremely positive, since I have generally felt cold.
Neither did my mother ever complain of menopausal problems.
Hormone replacement therapy did more harm than good to the millions of women around the world who were taking it, increasing their risks of heart attacks, strokes, blood clots and breast cancer.
“Promoting a woman’s natural change of life as a medical condition of ‘estrogen’ loss has a history dating back several decades at least.”
The drug companies’ propaganda designed to sell their harmful drugs was appellated “awareness-raising campaigns”.
There is a chapter on ADHD/ADD. Billions of dollars are spent every year diagnosing and medicating children whose symptoms include “often fidgets with hands or feet” and prescribing “lifelong speed” to adults who “drum their fingers”.
Another new condition approved in the U.S. is premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD). It is stated that this psychiatric condition is suffered from by up to 7% of women. Professor Paula Caplan claims that the condition has “essentially” been invented and there is not strong scientific evidence to distinguish it from premenstrual difficulties.
Prozac is prescribed for the condition in the U.S. while in other parts of the world it is not even a recognized disease.
There are also chapters about osteoporosis, irritable bowel syndrome, and female sexual dysfunction.
I found this to be an important book which warns us both about the creation of illnesses by drug companies and the dangers of the drugs sold to treat them.
At the beginning of the book, Henry Gadsden, Merck’s chief executive, is quoted as saying that it had long been his dream to make drugs for healthy people because then Merck would be able to sell to everyone.
And that is what is happening now, and that is the gist of the book.
For example, we all know it is dangerous to have high blood pressure. But the definition of what constitutes high blood pressure is constantly being revised, and what used to be regarded as normal blood pressure is now defined as “high”, In this way, more and more otherwise healthy people are considered at risk of heart disease, and being pressed to take drugs, much to the glee of big Pharma,
One factor is that the high blood pressure guidelines are written by persons with major conflicts of interest. Many own stocks in a long list of drug companies. One of those involved in writing the guidelines declared financial ties to twenty-one companies.
As regards high cholesterol, these authors are aware of the fact that cholesterol is not “a deadly enemy” but “an essential element of the body’s makeup, and --- vital to life”. But, Dr. Malcolm Kendrick in his books on the subject, points out that high cholesterol does not, as generally thought, and as stated in the present book, cause heart disease (see my review on Kendrick’s book “The great cholesterol con”.)
Kendrick and others point out how it is in fact low cholesterol that is deadly, and that statins, prescribed to lower cholesterol levels, are exceedingly dangerous.
In the book under review, also, the dangers of statins are pointed out, it being revealed that one statin, Baycol, has been removed from the market after being implicated in several deaths.
Another statin, Lipitor, is the world’s top-selling prescription drug, ever.
Sales of statins have soared in later years owing to the fact that the number of people being diagnosed as having “high cholesterol” has grown astronomically; and its definition has been broadened to make more and more healthy people be diagnosed as “sick”.
But, the doctors defining what constitutes high cholesterol and recommending when drugs should be used to treat it, are at the same time paid by the companies making those drugs to speak about and thus promote them.
36 million Americans warrant treatment with statins.
As I have pointed out in another review, extremely high cholesterol levels have been found in women who lived to a ripe old age, while lower levels have been found in women who died earlier, thus showing that, at least in women, high cholesterol does not cause early death.
The worst thing is that these dangerous drugs, statins, are being prescribed to healthy people.
Two important, though rare, side effects of statins are a debilitating muscle-wasting condition, and liver damage. In the case of a new statin, Crestor, kidney failure is also occurring.
Drug companies are instilling the notion that depression is a wide-spread psychiatric disease best treated with a group of drugs including Prozac, Paxil and Zoloft. Prescriptions for these drugs tripled through the 1990s making antidepressants one of the top-selling kinds of drugs and generating huge sales for their makers.
In his book “Deadly psychiatry and Organized Denial”, Peter Gøtzsche demonstrates the deadly dangers of anti-depressants (see my review).
The advantages of these anti-depressants over placebo are modest at best, and their side-effects include sexual problems, severe withdrawal reactions and an increase in suicidal behaviour among the young.
“Psychiatry’s intimate relationship with the pharmaceutical industry has become notorious.”
It has been stated repeatedly that perhaps a third of the population has a mental illness.
Dr. William Narrow looked into a survey dealing with this and found that a lot of those classified as having a mental disorder did not have a clinically significant disorder, i.e. one that warranted treatment.
In the revised estimates, the proportion of people said to be suffering major depression was virtually halved from 10 percent to under 5 percent. And it was likely that the true rates of disorders were significantly lower still. People with mild problems had been included in the original estimates.
The heavily promoted anti-depressants have serious side-effects. Serzone was withdrawn from the market following evidence linking it to hepatitis and liver failure.
Prozac, Paxil and Zoloft can cause “serious sexual difficulties”. With Paxil, 25 percent of those prescribed the drug have “worrisome” withdrawal symptoms. Worst of all they seem to increase the risk of suicidal behaviour and thinking among children and adolescents.
And for almost all the drugs there was no evidence that the anti-depressants worked any better than a placebo.
“The most natural and normal processes of life are being sold as medical conditions to be treated with drugs.”
There has been a massive marketing campaign promoting the “dangers” of the menopause and the “promise” of hormone pills.
Advertisements threaten post-menopausal women with coming to suffer from “Alzheimer’s, heart attacks, colon cancer, cataracts, teeth loss, night sweats, vaginal dryness, bone fractures, and more”.
I myself had no menopausal symptoms, except a few hot flashes which I experienced as extremely positive, since I have generally felt cold.
Neither did my mother ever complain of menopausal problems.
Hormone replacement therapy did more harm than good to the millions of women around the world who were taking it, increasing their risks of heart attacks, strokes, blood clots and breast cancer.
“Promoting a woman’s natural change of life as a medical condition of ‘estrogen’ loss has a history dating back several decades at least.”
The drug companies’ propaganda designed to sell their harmful drugs was appellated “awareness-raising campaigns”.
There is a chapter on ADHD/ADD. Billions of dollars are spent every year diagnosing and medicating children whose symptoms include “often fidgets with hands or feet” and prescribing “lifelong speed” to adults who “drum their fingers”.
Another new condition approved in the U.S. is premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD). It is stated that this psychiatric condition is suffered from by up to 7% of women. Professor Paula Caplan claims that the condition has “essentially” been invented and there is not strong scientific evidence to distinguish it from premenstrual difficulties.
Prozac is prescribed for the condition in the U.S. while in other parts of the world it is not even a recognized disease.
There are also chapters about osteoporosis, irritable bowel syndrome, and female sexual dysfunction.
I found this to be an important book which warns us both about the creation of illnesses by drug companies and the dangers of the drugs sold to treat them.
March 28, 2013
There is a very good chance that if you are taking medication for high cholesterol, depression, ADD, high blood pressure, and/or osteoporosis you don’t need it, it is not helping you and you are damaging yourself by taking the medication. These are real problems for a very small minority but the commercials you have seen make it sound like a majority of Americans suffer from these issues.
You see to make more money the drug companies needed to figure out a way to get healthy people to buy drugs they don't need, which won't cure what they don't have, and potentially have unpleasant to dire side effects, sounds like such a crazy premise, even Hollywood wouldn't buy it.
Yet that's just what's happened, as Moynihan and Cassels document in their book "Selling Sickness". The 500 billion dollar pharmaceutical industry has plenty of money to spend convincing us that our ordinary travails mask mental illnesses, and common aches and pains need treatment.
1) The point where you "need" to take a particular drug is continually lowered (i.e. for cholesterol, high blood pressure, etc), often far lower than necessary. Many of the doctors setting these lower standards have financial ties to the drug companies.
2) New diseases are invented that don't really exist. Menopause, for example, is a natural part of the life cycle. It's doubtful that attention deficit disorder and other "diseases" in the book exist.
3) Pharmaceutical companies exaggerate the good the drug will do for you. Brittle bones are only 13% of the problem in osteoporosis, which tends to affect people the last chapter of their life. Far more important is: don't fall! Be sure you've got good eyeglasses; make sure your rugs don't slip, exercise, and so on.
4) You'll never see ads telling you the one thing you need to know: if you want to lead a healthy life, eat a good diet and exercise. But you will see all sorts of deceptive ads, which this book does a good job of describing. You'll be angry and sometimes shocked when you see the dirty tricks used to promote drugs.
If you know someone who is taking medication for any of the above diseases, please have them read this book. You may save their good health and preserve their quality of life.
You see to make more money the drug companies needed to figure out a way to get healthy people to buy drugs they don't need, which won't cure what they don't have, and potentially have unpleasant to dire side effects, sounds like such a crazy premise, even Hollywood wouldn't buy it.
Yet that's just what's happened, as Moynihan and Cassels document in their book "Selling Sickness". The 500 billion dollar pharmaceutical industry has plenty of money to spend convincing us that our ordinary travails mask mental illnesses, and common aches and pains need treatment.
1) The point where you "need" to take a particular drug is continually lowered (i.e. for cholesterol, high blood pressure, etc), often far lower than necessary. Many of the doctors setting these lower standards have financial ties to the drug companies.
2) New diseases are invented that don't really exist. Menopause, for example, is a natural part of the life cycle. It's doubtful that attention deficit disorder and other "diseases" in the book exist.
3) Pharmaceutical companies exaggerate the good the drug will do for you. Brittle bones are only 13% of the problem in osteoporosis, which tends to affect people the last chapter of their life. Far more important is: don't fall! Be sure you've got good eyeglasses; make sure your rugs don't slip, exercise, and so on.
4) You'll never see ads telling you the one thing you need to know: if you want to lead a healthy life, eat a good diet and exercise. But you will see all sorts of deceptive ads, which this book does a good job of describing. You'll be angry and sometimes shocked when you see the dirty tricks used to promote drugs.
If you know someone who is taking medication for any of the above diseases, please have them read this book. You may save their good health and preserve their quality of life.
June 30, 2016
I was apprehensive that the message of this book would be "Big pharma is making us all sick!" or some such conspiracy, but thankfully, it's not. Technically drug companies *are* trying to make us all sick, but it's by expanding the definitions of sickness -- i.e. people who were well are now classified as ill, even though nothing has changed except the definition.
It's a really interesting, well-structured book about the links between drug companies and researchers, government, doctors, and patient advocacy groups. It specifically highlights the drug-company links related to high cholesterol and heart attacks, depression, menopause, attention deficit disorder (ADD), high blood pressure, pre-menstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD), social anxiety disorder (social phobia), bone density and osteoporosis, irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) and female sexual dysfunction.
It's a really interesting, well-structured book about the links between drug companies and researchers, government, doctors, and patient advocacy groups. It specifically highlights the drug-company links related to high cholesterol and heart attacks, depression, menopause, attention deficit disorder (ADD), high blood pressure, pre-menstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD), social anxiety disorder (social phobia), bone density and osteoporosis, irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) and female sexual dysfunction.
October 6, 2007
This book pissed me off, which I'm taking as a good thing. If you've noticed all the commericals on TV trying to convince you that you need a drug to treat "restless leg syndrome" or some other type of problem, read this first. Drug development has been wonderful in many ways, but it has a nasty side when the profits are so high, and when we all live so long. Drug companies make big $$ when they get us to take the same drugs for years.
October 2, 2019
Everyone should read this book... it's time for us all to look to integrated medicine & talk to doctors that are not influenced by big pharma & getting you out of their office in 5 minutes for $80...with drugs to 'manage' you.
GPs know nothing about diet & really don't know how to look at each of us holistically.
I'm a health care professional totally disallusioned by the medical model of healthcare, having a chronic illness.....this book doesn't discuss anything to do with auto-immune illness but what it does do is discuss how the definitions of conditions have changed over time, influenced by dollars in order to sell more drugs to everyone....a pill for every ill. We need to wake-up.
I ighly recommend.
GPs know nothing about diet & really don't know how to look at each of us holistically.
I'm a health care professional totally disallusioned by the medical model of healthcare, having a chronic illness.....this book doesn't discuss anything to do with auto-immune illness but what it does do is discuss how the definitions of conditions have changed over time, influenced by dollars in order to sell more drugs to everyone....a pill for every ill. We need to wake-up.
I ighly recommend.
April 5, 2023
This book, published in 2005, was an awakening call, never answered, about the over medication and over diagnosed society we live in, and chilling with regard to the FDA and other health agencies with a VERY clear relationship to the main situation today. For my friends and family who trust and have faith in our various health agencies, they have been deceiving us for a very long time.
P. ix - Merk's chief executive told Fortune magazine of his distress that the company's potential markets had been limited to sick people. He wanted to make drugs for healthy people so he could sell to everyone. - p. 76 - Increasing tendency to define unpleasant human feelings and troublesome behavior as a disease to be corrected with drugs. . . both prescription drug use and corporate influence in medicine have grown astronomically . . .
p. 103 ...more and more ads are helping sell the idea that everyday human experiences are symptoms of medical conditions requiring treatments with drugs. Ads targets aspects of ordinary life that people could manage without seeing a doctor - and portrayed them as if they were part of a medical condition. Advertising was increasingly medicalizing ordinary experience and pushing the boundaries of medical influence far too wide. "an ill for every pill." Shift from a drug that is approved to treat people who are suffering from an illness to the idea that you just take a pill to deal with normal life situations.
p. 121 - Public relations firms cultivate the marketplace prior to drug approval, and helps to speed up approval. Generate extensive media coverage about a "disorder" always making the link between the condition and the drug. Public was to be educated about a new condition by a campaign whose primary goal was to maximize sales of a drug.
Medical expertise through paid representatives abound.
p. 126 - anxiety disorder is seen as being more able to be treated with drug therapy. Phobia is considered to be a condition more amenable to talking therapies. More people can be categorized as being ill if you apply the definition of an anxiety disorder rather than a phobia. Phobia - have to avoid situations that cause fear. In US - enough that fear causes anxiety - potential pool of patients much larger.
p. 127 - ...we are witnessing a blurring of the boundaries between normal life and treatable illness.
p. 130 - social anxiety disorder campaign - anther case where those with mild illness or sometimes none at all, are being told they have a serious psychiatric disorder. And only one cause - which has not been proven to be true - brain chemical thing.
p. 137Instead of investigations of cultural influences on patterns of social interaction. What is the nature of society that produces widespread social unease? competition, definitions of success, etc.
p. 133 - Paxil for social anxiety. ...too much ordinary life is being transformed into medical illness. Changing the experience of what it means to be human. If you have a very mild problem, then making you a psychiatric patient and putting you on a pill may pose more risks that leaving you untreated. (Withdrawal and suicidal behaviors) children had more suicidal ideation. p. 134 - no evidence that antidepressants were any better than a placebo - yet prescriptions to the young have been skyrocketing.
p. 153- 4 problem and failed society - is this whole area of how many healthy people are now having tests, labeling themselves at risk, altering their behavior, and using resources to use medicines that we are blandly assuming are doing more good than harm.
p. 158 - Lotronex for IBS - real data in FDA documents contradicted rosy picture in Lancet. Authors were drug company employees. Causing horrendous side effects and no more effective than placebo. FDA rejected calls for a ban. Stolley and other colleagues at FDA penned an internal memo arguing that the rising toll of death, hospitalizations, and complications had never before been seen by physicians treating IBS. 160 - Measures to educating - inadequate to stop the mounting casualties. As the scientists pointed out - no real way of knowing who might be at risk of a life-threatening complication from this drug. Implication was that anyone taking it was at risk and that should come off the market immediately. FDA officers did not want to offend the pharmaceutical industry which was paying for half the agency's budget for it drug review work. FDA does not "argue with the drug companies. We listen to their distortions and omissions of evidence and we do nothing about it. FDA wanted to determine a course forward - despite its potential side effects - was reapproved. The message was being sent loud and clear to all those in the FDA - help get this drug back on the market. GSK officials and FDA staff worked closely to ensure beforehand that the advisory committee was going to give the advice that the company and senior FDA officials wanted.
p. 162 - advisory committee met to reconsider future (2002) even though there were over two hundred reports of serious complications and seven of death, deemed by FDA scientists as probably linked to the drug - FDA voted to reapprove without tough restrictions.
p. 165 - regulatory bodies that approve drugs are unable or unwilling to play a bigger role in how those drugs are actually prescribed because of tremendous political power of the medical profession. Cozy relationship with drug companies - FDA forging new role. Agency rushes too quickly to approve powerful new pills. / 166 FDA is now a place where dissenting scientific opinion was suppressed and had become a servant of industry. Lancet described a fatal erosion of integrity at the FDA, and accused the agency of sidelining its own scientists and conducting private back-channel communications with company staff to help bring drugs to market. Internal emails reveal details of those communications.
p. 167 - FDA is a place where scientific debatte is repressed. Too afraid to offend its sponsors. Surveys of FDA staff - many officers felt under pressure to approve new drugs, received inappropriate phone calls from drug companies and FDA senior officials intervened on a company's behalf in drug approval. People reviewing drugs reported feeling pressure to favor the desires of sponsors oer science and the public health.. 1/3 said they did not feel comfortable expressing their differing scientific opinion. (p/ 167)
p. 168 - mismatch between hard scientific data and the drug claims made by drug company.
p. 171 - extents of pharmaceutical industry's influence over the health system is simply Orwellian. Doctors, drug reps, medical education, ads, patients' groups, guidelines, celebrities, conferences, public awareness campaign, thought-leaders and regulator's advisers - at every level there is money from drug companies lubricating an unhealthy flow of influence. Largesse handed out to those most commercially helpful. Strategic and systemic - designed to engender the most favorable view of the latest and most expensive products.
P. ix - Merk's chief executive told Fortune magazine of his distress that the company's potential markets had been limited to sick people. He wanted to make drugs for healthy people so he could sell to everyone. - p. 76 - Increasing tendency to define unpleasant human feelings and troublesome behavior as a disease to be corrected with drugs. . . both prescription drug use and corporate influence in medicine have grown astronomically . . .
p. 103 ...more and more ads are helping sell the idea that everyday human experiences are symptoms of medical conditions requiring treatments with drugs. Ads targets aspects of ordinary life that people could manage without seeing a doctor - and portrayed them as if they were part of a medical condition. Advertising was increasingly medicalizing ordinary experience and pushing the boundaries of medical influence far too wide. "an ill for every pill." Shift from a drug that is approved to treat people who are suffering from an illness to the idea that you just take a pill to deal with normal life situations.
p. 121 - Public relations firms cultivate the marketplace prior to drug approval, and helps to speed up approval. Generate extensive media coverage about a "disorder" always making the link between the condition and the drug. Public was to be educated about a new condition by a campaign whose primary goal was to maximize sales of a drug.
Medical expertise through paid representatives abound.
p. 126 - anxiety disorder is seen as being more able to be treated with drug therapy. Phobia is considered to be a condition more amenable to talking therapies. More people can be categorized as being ill if you apply the definition of an anxiety disorder rather than a phobia. Phobia - have to avoid situations that cause fear. In US - enough that fear causes anxiety - potential pool of patients much larger.
p. 127 - ...we are witnessing a blurring of the boundaries between normal life and treatable illness.
p. 130 - social anxiety disorder campaign - anther case where those with mild illness or sometimes none at all, are being told they have a serious psychiatric disorder. And only one cause - which has not been proven to be true - brain chemical thing.
p. 137Instead of investigations of cultural influences on patterns of social interaction. What is the nature of society that produces widespread social unease? competition, definitions of success, etc.
p. 133 - Paxil for social anxiety. ...too much ordinary life is being transformed into medical illness. Changing the experience of what it means to be human. If you have a very mild problem, then making you a psychiatric patient and putting you on a pill may pose more risks that leaving you untreated. (Withdrawal and suicidal behaviors) children had more suicidal ideation. p. 134 - no evidence that antidepressants were any better than a placebo - yet prescriptions to the young have been skyrocketing.
p. 153- 4 problem and failed society - is this whole area of how many healthy people are now having tests, labeling themselves at risk, altering their behavior, and using resources to use medicines that we are blandly assuming are doing more good than harm.
p. 158 - Lotronex for IBS - real data in FDA documents contradicted rosy picture in Lancet. Authors were drug company employees. Causing horrendous side effects and no more effective than placebo. FDA rejected calls for a ban. Stolley and other colleagues at FDA penned an internal memo arguing that the rising toll of death, hospitalizations, and complications had never before been seen by physicians treating IBS. 160 - Measures to educating - inadequate to stop the mounting casualties. As the scientists pointed out - no real way of knowing who might be at risk of a life-threatening complication from this drug. Implication was that anyone taking it was at risk and that should come off the market immediately. FDA officers did not want to offend the pharmaceutical industry which was paying for half the agency's budget for it drug review work. FDA does not "argue with the drug companies. We listen to their distortions and omissions of evidence and we do nothing about it. FDA wanted to determine a course forward - despite its potential side effects - was reapproved. The message was being sent loud and clear to all those in the FDA - help get this drug back on the market. GSK officials and FDA staff worked closely to ensure beforehand that the advisory committee was going to give the advice that the company and senior FDA officials wanted.
p. 162 - advisory committee met to reconsider future (2002) even though there were over two hundred reports of serious complications and seven of death, deemed by FDA scientists as probably linked to the drug - FDA voted to reapprove without tough restrictions.
p. 165 - regulatory bodies that approve drugs are unable or unwilling to play a bigger role in how those drugs are actually prescribed because of tremendous political power of the medical profession. Cozy relationship with drug companies - FDA forging new role. Agency rushes too quickly to approve powerful new pills. / 166 FDA is now a place where dissenting scientific opinion was suppressed and had become a servant of industry. Lancet described a fatal erosion of integrity at the FDA, and accused the agency of sidelining its own scientists and conducting private back-channel communications with company staff to help bring drugs to market. Internal emails reveal details of those communications.
p. 167 - FDA is a place where scientific debatte is repressed. Too afraid to offend its sponsors. Surveys of FDA staff - many officers felt under pressure to approve new drugs, received inappropriate phone calls from drug companies and FDA senior officials intervened on a company's behalf in drug approval. People reviewing drugs reported feeling pressure to favor the desires of sponsors oer science and the public health.. 1/3 said they did not feel comfortable expressing their differing scientific opinion. (p/ 167)
p. 168 - mismatch between hard scientific data and the drug claims made by drug company.
p. 171 - extents of pharmaceutical industry's influence over the health system is simply Orwellian. Doctors, drug reps, medical education, ads, patients' groups, guidelines, celebrities, conferences, public awareness campaign, thought-leaders and regulator's advisers - at every level there is money from drug companies lubricating an unhealthy flow of influence. Largesse handed out to those most commercially helpful. Strategic and systemic - designed to engender the most favorable view of the latest and most expensive products.
September 19, 2024
Ontluisterend boek over hoe de farma-industrie de ups en downs in ieders leven als ziekten presenteert om meer medicijnen te verkopen waarvan de bijwerkingen in vele gevallen erger zijn dan de ziekten zelf.
December 4, 2022
Clearly written by journalists, this reads like an exposé. It's moderately interesting, but it could have gone deeper in a few areas. Organized by condition, which makes it more engaging, especially since some of the material is dry. FDA regulatory meetings are important, but it's hard not to yawn reading about them.
The book puts most of the blame on pharma, especially the executive and business functions. It lets doctors off surprisingly easily, explicitly saying that the problem isn't that doctors are influenced by their relationships with pharma (excluding the various bribery scandals), the problem is the *perception* of "coziness". But problem isn't perception. The problem is real behavior (overprescribing, questionable guidelines) that happens, largely unconsciously, because doctors are human and are susceptible to advertising / financial support / etc. At least, that's one of the problems.
As for the other problems, the problem of side effects is fairly clearly stated. Structural problems are hinted at but not really engaged with. This book could easily become a critique of for-profit medicine, but mostly it ends up painting PR firms as the villains.
There's a bit about public health and a bit about the medicalization of normal life activity, but at a shallow level that started to get under my skin. The authors repeatedly criticized applying a medical approach to natural processes, by which they seemed to mean aging and women's health. I agree the American approach to end of life care causes unnecessary suffering, having been persuaded by Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End, but I'm wary of idealizing "natural" processes. Doing so makes me suspicious of the speaker's approach to reproductive health, which does get overly medicalized but also gets trivialized and turned into a mechanism of control. Indeed, near the end of the book, birth control was grouped in with other "lifestyle" medicine dismissively. That left me skeptical of the entire chapter on menopause. I'd also have been suspicious of the chapter on female sexual dysfunction, except that I agree that one is a garbage diagnosis. Tangentially, I'd love to see someone write about how the pharmaceutical approach to erectile dysfunction reduces men to mere penises. Sure, women's sexuality is complex, blah blah we're such mysteries, and women's low desire has plenty to do with emotional factors, life stress, patriarchy, etc., but I hear men also have lives and emotional capacity, so perhaps reducing their sexual problems to a simple matter of hardness isn't doing them a whole lot of favors.
Not a bad book, but it wouldn't be the first or only one I'd read on the subject. Limits to Medicine: Medical Nemesis: The Expropriation of Health is incredible. Against Health: How Health Became the New Morality is a good critique, and there are books on more specific issues, particularly depression, pregnancy, and obesity, that examine similar themes.
The book puts most of the blame on pharma, especially the executive and business functions. It lets doctors off surprisingly easily, explicitly saying that the problem isn't that doctors are influenced by their relationships with pharma (excluding the various bribery scandals), the problem is the *perception* of "coziness". But problem isn't perception. The problem is real behavior (overprescribing, questionable guidelines) that happens, largely unconsciously, because doctors are human and are susceptible to advertising / financial support / etc. At least, that's one of the problems.
As for the other problems, the problem of side effects is fairly clearly stated. Structural problems are hinted at but not really engaged with. This book could easily become a critique of for-profit medicine, but mostly it ends up painting PR firms as the villains.
There's a bit about public health and a bit about the medicalization of normal life activity, but at a shallow level that started to get under my skin. The authors repeatedly criticized applying a medical approach to natural processes, by which they seemed to mean aging and women's health. I agree the American approach to end of life care causes unnecessary suffering, having been persuaded by Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End, but I'm wary of idealizing "natural" processes. Doing so makes me suspicious of the speaker's approach to reproductive health, which does get overly medicalized but also gets trivialized and turned into a mechanism of control. Indeed, near the end of the book, birth control was grouped in with other "lifestyle" medicine dismissively. That left me skeptical of the entire chapter on menopause. I'd also have been suspicious of the chapter on female sexual dysfunction, except that I agree that one is a garbage diagnosis. Tangentially, I'd love to see someone write about how the pharmaceutical approach to erectile dysfunction reduces men to mere penises. Sure, women's sexuality is complex, blah blah we're such mysteries, and women's low desire has plenty to do with emotional factors, life stress, patriarchy, etc., but I hear men also have lives and emotional capacity, so perhaps reducing their sexual problems to a simple matter of hardness isn't doing them a whole lot of favors.
Not a bad book, but it wouldn't be the first or only one I'd read on the subject. Limits to Medicine: Medical Nemesis: The Expropriation of Health is incredible. Against Health: How Health Became the New Morality is a good critique, and there are books on more specific issues, particularly depression, pregnancy, and obesity, that examine similar themes.
October 30, 2012
This book is a quick read focused on the broad links between pharmaceutical companies, advertisement agencies and the medical community to expand and create illnesses. The most revealing and disturbing aspect is the manipulation of statistics and data to mislead doctors, patients and the healthy into believing there is a pill for every ill when the scientific data shows there is marginal benefit to most while the significant side affects are down played or ignored altogether. The book goes to some length to present both sides, but clearly, this is a book focused on big pharmaceutical companies and the way they are selling sickness to the heathy.
January 16, 2014
The title of the book rather gives the contents away. There is much to relate to while reading this as it is now patently true that many drugs are marketed to a healthy population. The side effects of some of these drugs have been well documented after their emergence on the market and the roll of physicians in aiding and abetting pharmaceutical companies to create markets is undisputed. Although not mentioned in this book I think of the teeth whitening craze that we have witnessed and the emergence of sensitivity toothpastes that followed .
January 20, 2025
من 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
من 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
من 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
December 11, 2022
Selling Sickness reads more or less like required reading for a social science course in college. Moynihan's arguments are convincing, yet the entire book can be distilled into 2-3 chapters. If I were to reorganize it:
Chapter 1: to argue that the pharm industry is blurring ordinary life and medical conditions
Chapter 2: to argue that the pharm industry is misleading gullible or greedy medical practitioners
Chapter 3: to point out that progressive forces are forming to counter the pharm industry's efforts
Not a good read in terms of the author's story-narrating ability, but this book reveals three trends and is enlightening for people unfamiliar with the matter.
Chapter 1: to argue that the pharm industry is blurring ordinary life and medical conditions
Chapter 2: to argue that the pharm industry is misleading gullible or greedy medical practitioners
Chapter 3: to point out that progressive forces are forming to counter the pharm industry's efforts
Not a good read in terms of the author's story-narrating ability, but this book reveals three trends and is enlightening for people unfamiliar with the matter.
March 3, 2018
Just as infuriating as you might expect, this book makes a strong case that a number of "health conditions" are nothing of the kind - either meaningless scaremongering or the medicalisation of everyday life. Like Listerine inventing Gingivitis, too many people are suffering side effects for little to no benefit in order to drive profit for the makers of drugs for whom the FDA is lap-dog rather than watchdog. Sickening, but not surprising.
April 15, 2019
Good info
Its very important to know how all these new diseases keep popping up and this book explains it very well
Its very important to know how all these new diseases keep popping up and this book explains it very well
Want to read
September 16, 2019Good to learn about this book
September 6, 2021
Very eye-opening. I'm so thankful to have found this book. A must-read.
February 2, 2024
Very informative.
March 30, 2024
There are many different promotional strategies used in the selling of sickness, but the common factor amongst them all is the marketing of fear
August 12, 2014
Non è mistero che, se gli americani hanno fatto grandi cose, di certo hanno toppato nel creare il loro sistema sanitario. Ci sono cose che non possono essere private: in Europa e persino in Italia, dove la politica è tutto fuorché orientata al benessere del cittadino, queste cose (per ora) non succeddono. Come mai milioni di bambini americani soffrono di deficit d'attenzione, e quelli italiani no? Come mai le donne americane sono passate dalla sindrome premestruale alla "depressione premestruale", e quelle francesi si alzano senza tante balle ogni giorno per andare al lavoro, malumori ormonali o meno?
Sono stata un paio di volte negli USA ed ero sbalordita dal numero di pubblicità di medicine che passavano in tv. Certo che poi anche il farmaco perde di credibilità, diventa equiparabile a una marca di biscotti.
Un'altra cosa che gli europei hanno di diverso da loro è l'approccio alla sofferenza, sia morale che fisica. Un paese che ha il diritto alla felicità sancito dalla costituzione non riesce a concepire che si possa soffrire. Vive i sentimenti e le sensazioni negative come un'aberrazione da curare al più presto, meglio se con una pastiglia che non impegna. Il problema è che non possiamo quantificare e standardizzare il benessere.
La parte che mi ha fatto più ridere è l'accanimento con cui alcuni medici, tutti uomini, vogliono risolvere il problema della disfunzione sessuale femminile. Con una pomatina, probabilmente.
Eh, certo! Mi veniva da leggere i passaggi con la voce della Littizzetto. La donna esce di casa, porta i figli a scuola, va in ufficio, passa dalla lavanderia, porta il figlio a calcetto e la figlia a danza, fa la spesa, recupera i figli, torna a casa, prepara la cena, controlla i compiti, ramazza per casa guardando il compagno che magari rutta felice davanti alla playstation e al momento di andare a letto... voilà: una cremina e via, orgasmi da far arrossire anche Valérie Tasso. Non credo proprio.
La medicina non è una scienza esatta e tutti, nel momento in cui prendiamo un farmaco, stiamo facendo da cavia. Il consiglio che reputo il più saggio di tutto il libro è: prendete le medicine più vecchie. Prima di tutto costano meno, a molte è scaduto il brevetto e possono essere acquistate come generiche. Secondo, sono collaudate. L'aspirina esiste dalla fine del 1800 e ne conosciamo ormai i pro e i contro: difficilmente leggeremo domani sul giornale che qualcuno è morto in modo inusuale o inaspettato dopo aver preso due aspirine per un mal di denti. Potremmo però leggere una notizia del genere riguardo all'ultimo, nuovissimo analgesico appena uscito dai migliori laboratori, perché ovviamente non può essere stato testato per tutto.
Per il resto siate buoni pazienti: non andate al pronto soccorso per un mal di gola e non mettete sullo stesso piano farmacia e panetteria.
Sono stata un paio di volte negli USA ed ero sbalordita dal numero di pubblicità di medicine che passavano in tv. Certo che poi anche il farmaco perde di credibilità, diventa equiparabile a una marca di biscotti.
Un'altra cosa che gli europei hanno di diverso da loro è l'approccio alla sofferenza, sia morale che fisica. Un paese che ha il diritto alla felicità sancito dalla costituzione non riesce a concepire che si possa soffrire. Vive i sentimenti e le sensazioni negative come un'aberrazione da curare al più presto, meglio se con una pastiglia che non impegna. Il problema è che non possiamo quantificare e standardizzare il benessere.
La parte che mi ha fatto più ridere è l'accanimento con cui alcuni medici, tutti uomini, vogliono risolvere il problema della disfunzione sessuale femminile. Con una pomatina, probabilmente.
Eh, certo! Mi veniva da leggere i passaggi con la voce della Littizzetto. La donna esce di casa, porta i figli a scuola, va in ufficio, passa dalla lavanderia, porta il figlio a calcetto e la figlia a danza, fa la spesa, recupera i figli, torna a casa, prepara la cena, controlla i compiti, ramazza per casa guardando il compagno che magari rutta felice davanti alla playstation e al momento di andare a letto... voilà: una cremina e via, orgasmi da far arrossire anche Valérie Tasso. Non credo proprio.
La medicina non è una scienza esatta e tutti, nel momento in cui prendiamo un farmaco, stiamo facendo da cavia. Il consiglio che reputo il più saggio di tutto il libro è: prendete le medicine più vecchie. Prima di tutto costano meno, a molte è scaduto il brevetto e possono essere acquistate come generiche. Secondo, sono collaudate. L'aspirina esiste dalla fine del 1800 e ne conosciamo ormai i pro e i contro: difficilmente leggeremo domani sul giornale che qualcuno è morto in modo inusuale o inaspettato dopo aver preso due aspirine per un mal di denti. Potremmo però leggere una notizia del genere riguardo all'ultimo, nuovissimo analgesico appena uscito dai migliori laboratori, perché ovviamente non può essere stato testato per tutto.
Per il resto siate buoni pazienti: non andate al pronto soccorso per un mal di gola e non mettete sullo stesso piano farmacia e panetteria.
March 21, 2014
Ho comprato questo libro perchè mi incuriosiva il titolo, dopo ho fatto qualche breve ricerchina su internet, sia chiaro non definitiva nè accurata, quanto basta per mettermi l'anima in pace diciamo, e poi ho deciso di parlarne.
Molti di noi si dichiarano contrari all'uso spasmodico di medicine, ma pochi rinuncerebbero a curare uno dei loro fattori di rischio, il problema è chi stabilisce quanti e quali sono i fattori di rischio e soprattutto chi stabilisce la soglia del rischio?
Questo libro mette paura, ma non tanto con lo spauracchio delle malattie, così sono capaci tutti, quanto piuttosto su una previsione relativamente a breve termine, che se le cose continuano così, da mediamente sani ci trasformeremo in una popolazione di relativamente malati.
La questione dell'influenza delle case farmaceutiche nel businnes della malattia non è certo un argomento nuovo, tutti noi possiamo aprire i giornali e vedere la foto di due quarantenni che si abbracciano e la didascalia sul fatto che un disturbo sessuale non è qualcosa di cui vergognarsi, ma un argomento di cui parlare con il medico; la questione è quanti siano coloro che notano che la pubblicità è firmata Pfizer (Viagra), oppure vedere la pubblicità accompagnata dalla musichetta e dalla didascalia della federfarma (progettare una casa e avere un tumore, etc.etc.).
Questo libro mette sotto i riflettori quanto il mercato delle cause farmaceutiche in alcuni casi ha "inventato" una malattia e poi ha adeguatamente ventilato la cura, guarda caso proprio all'uopo.
Un piccolo esempio potrebbe essere la cura del colesterolo per prevenire problemi cardiocircolatori o dell'osteoporosi in donne in assenza di altri fattori di rischio (obesità o diabete nel caso del colesterolo o una pessima dieta, sedentarietà e fumo in menopausa per l'osteoporosi).
Insomma leggetevelo e fatevi voi stessi un'idea, ma credo sia almeno importante sapere che, a volte, coloro che stabiliscono quali sono le soglie di rischio di alcune patologie, sono spesso molto amici delle stesse persone che spacciano le medicine ai dottori...
Molti di noi si dichiarano contrari all'uso spasmodico di medicine, ma pochi rinuncerebbero a curare uno dei loro fattori di rischio, il problema è chi stabilisce quanti e quali sono i fattori di rischio e soprattutto chi stabilisce la soglia del rischio?
Questo libro mette paura, ma non tanto con lo spauracchio delle malattie, così sono capaci tutti, quanto piuttosto su una previsione relativamente a breve termine, che se le cose continuano così, da mediamente sani ci trasformeremo in una popolazione di relativamente malati.
La questione dell'influenza delle case farmaceutiche nel businnes della malattia non è certo un argomento nuovo, tutti noi possiamo aprire i giornali e vedere la foto di due quarantenni che si abbracciano e la didascalia sul fatto che un disturbo sessuale non è qualcosa di cui vergognarsi, ma un argomento di cui parlare con il medico; la questione è quanti siano coloro che notano che la pubblicità è firmata Pfizer (Viagra), oppure vedere la pubblicità accompagnata dalla musichetta e dalla didascalia della federfarma (progettare una casa e avere un tumore, etc.etc.).
Questo libro mette sotto i riflettori quanto il mercato delle cause farmaceutiche in alcuni casi ha "inventato" una malattia e poi ha adeguatamente ventilato la cura, guarda caso proprio all'uopo.
Un piccolo esempio potrebbe essere la cura del colesterolo per prevenire problemi cardiocircolatori o dell'osteoporosi in donne in assenza di altri fattori di rischio (obesità o diabete nel caso del colesterolo o una pessima dieta, sedentarietà e fumo in menopausa per l'osteoporosi).
Insomma leggetevelo e fatevi voi stessi un'idea, ma credo sia almeno importante sapere che, a volte, coloro che stabiliscono quali sono le soglie di rischio di alcune patologie, sono spesso molto amici delle stesse persone che spacciano le medicine ai dottori...
November 6, 2013
Knjiga je vredna branja, a z dodanim zrncem soli. Dragocena je predvsem kot povod za razmisleke o zdravju, medicini in tržnih vzvodih, ki delujejo za kulisami zdravstvenega sistema. Prav tako se zaradi nje lotiš prevpraševanja narave in učinka evidentno trženjskih in domnevno nevtralnih informacij, s katerimi nas pitajo mediji.
Po drugi strani je knjiga mestoma precej razvlečena in napisana s podobno tendencioznim ponavljanjem sumov in obtožb, kot naj bi bile/so tendenciozne in ponavljajoče se objave strokovnih in znanstvenih dognanj o določenih motnjah/boleznih in krasnih novih zdravilih zanje.
Značilno svojeglav prevod B.G. in dokaj številne banalne napake, ki so se pretihotapile mimo urednika in korektorja, še dodatno skazijo skupen vtis o knjigi.
Po drugi strani je knjiga mestoma precej razvlečena in napisana s podobno tendencioznim ponavljanjem sumov in obtožb, kot naj bi bile/so tendenciozne in ponavljajoče se objave strokovnih in znanstvenih dognanj o določenih motnjah/boleznih in krasnih novih zdravilih zanje.
Značilno svojeglav prevod B.G. in dokaj številne banalne napake, ki so se pretihotapile mimo urednika in korektorja, še dodatno skazijo skupen vtis o knjigi.
September 18, 2008
Pill-poppers beware! Most of the prescription drugs taken by Americans are unnecessary or so the authors contend. They also make a good case for disbelieving the diagnosis of the most common "diseases" which lead doctors to prescribe those needless drugs. By lowering the normal values or making the symptoms more vague, millions more Americans are suddenly "sick" and need their pills.
The chapters discuss the most common or popular drugs for the following conditions: high cholesterol, depression, menopause, ADD, high blood pressure, premenstrual dysphoric disorder, social anxiety disorder, osteoporosis, irritable bowel syndrome and female sexual dysfunction.
The chapters discuss the most common or popular drugs for the following conditions: high cholesterol, depression, menopause, ADD, high blood pressure, premenstrual dysphoric disorder, social anxiety disorder, osteoporosis, irritable bowel syndrome and female sexual dysfunction.
September 27, 2010
This book is an enlightening journey into the pharmaceutical industry and their attempts to make more money. This book does a great job of giving the information and letting you decide for yourself. My favorite part was that they showed how the pharmaceutical companies are treating risk factors as conditions and pushing medications as treatments for these "risk factors", even when the side effects of these drugs can be more severe than the risk factor itself. This is a great book for anyone trying to be an informed consumer in the medical industry, because as much as they want to "help" people, they are also in it for the money.
February 26, 2015
Definitely food for thought. They put forward a compelling argument. It makes me thankful that we, at least, don't have direct to consumer advertising of drugs here.
The book is a bit out of date now & from what I have seen things have improved a bit.
Whilst it is mentioned in the book I think it is good to remember that some of the medications & diseases talked about are real & large problems for some people and medications can make a big difference to their lives.
So, my take home from the book is when a doctor suggests medications ask about the numbers, know the risks and, like everything in life & health, consider critically and view yourself as a whole person.
The book is a bit out of date now & from what I have seen things have improved a bit.
Whilst it is mentioned in the book I think it is good to remember that some of the medications & diseases talked about are real & large problems for some people and medications can make a big difference to their lives.
So, my take home from the book is when a doctor suggests medications ask about the numbers, know the risks and, like everything in life & health, consider critically and view yourself as a whole person.
June 21, 2008
This book had a lot of potential, but I was really disappointed by the content. Each chapter discussed a different "disease" and had an interesting corresponding selling technique used by big pharma companies. However, after that, I thought the content was somewhat hard to follow. Might be worth reading if you are currently on or are in danger of being prescribed meds for the following: high cholesterol, high blood pressure, hormone replacement therapy, osteoporosis, ADD, or social anxiety disorder. However, I think you can find better info researching it for yourself.
May 24, 2012
The book is about how pharmaceutical companies are using marketing strategies to sell us a specific definition of an illness, and make us think that we all need drugs, especially the drugs they are selling. The best trick is to "convince" you to associate a disease with a prescription drug, so that you ask your doctor to give you the drug you saw in the ads on TV. The "diseases" that are promoted this way are high blood colesterol, depression, menopause, ADD, high blood pressure, osteoporosis, irritable bowel syndrome and sexual disfunction. An interesting book.
April 26, 2015
Trent’anni fa Henry Gadsden, direttore generale delal Merck, confessò che per lui il fatto che il potenziale mercato della società fosse limitato alla gente malata era sempre stato un cruccio e da tempo il suo sogno era produrre farmaci per gente sana.
A distanza di tre decenni il sogno del defunto Gadsden si è avverato.
Un libro modello inchiesta giornalistica da leggere assolutamente per capire come le case farmaceutiche creano malattie o alterino i livelli di pericolisità di alcuni parametri (vedi colesterolo o pressione arteriosa) per poter vendere farmaci a persone sane.
A distanza di tre decenni il sogno del defunto Gadsden si è avverato.
Un libro modello inchiesta giornalistica da leggere assolutamente per capire come le case farmaceutiche creano malattie o alterino i livelli di pericolisità di alcuni parametri (vedi colesterolo o pressione arteriosa) per poter vendere farmaci a persone sane.
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