Generation Rx: How Prescription Drugs Are Altering American Lives, Minds, and Bodies – Inside Big Pharma: Exclusive Interviews on Polypharmacy Dangers

by Greg Critser

Greg Critser's brilliantly incisive Generation Rx moves the conversation about prescription drugs to where it hits our own bodies. How, he asks, has "big pharma" created a nation of pharmaceutical tribes, each with its own unique beliefs, taboos, and brand loyalties? How have powerful chemical compounds for chronic diseases, once controlled by physicians, become substances we feel entitled to, whether we need them or not? How did we come to hate drug companies but love their pills?

Read on in Generation Rx

—exclusive interviews with the strategists, scientists, and current and former heads of GlaxoSmithKline, Eli Lilly, Merck, Roche, and more

—a first-ever, inside look at the rollicking business story behind pharma's rise to power

—the dramatic effects our drug culture is having on our major organs, from the liver to the heart to the brain

—why old bodies and young bodies are the biggest, and riskiest, arenas for our great American prescription pill party

—how the largely uncharted terrain of polypharmacy (various drugs taken together) has unleashed unanticipated, often deadly, consequences on unwitting patients

Generation Rx will make every American who has ever taken a prescription drug look anew at what’s in our medicine cabinets, and why.

Genres: Nonfiction, Health, Medicine, Psychology, Science

320 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2005

Reviews

[Shane Embury · Rating 4 out of 5]

i absolutely think everyone should read this.

suuuper fascinating, it covered the evolution of Big Pharma from pretty much every angle-- legal, economic, scientific, social, political, religious even, etc etc. The book basically reinforced my existing beliefs--everything is financially-motivated and Americans are excessively reliant on pharmaceuticals--but its arguments were justified with way more concrete examples than whatever vague generalizations I would've tried to recite prior to reading this. so, i learned a ton. very thorough and informative and ultimately persuasive.

Best quote: "[The liver] is the only organ that can, with time, regenerate itself, a kind of Donald Trump of the human body." This book was published in 2005.

[EDmolishED · Rating 2 out of 5]

Long winded about boring details.

Conclusion: Drugs are bad kids. Therefore live a healthy life so you don’t need to rely on drugs to prolong your unhealthy habits, chronic or acute disease’s.

[rmn · Rating 3 out of 5]

A somewhat biased, though informative, view of the pharmaceutical industry over the past 30ish years.

This is actually a pretty good piece of journalism as the author walks through the evolution of pharmaceutical marketing, the industry move to the direct to consumer model, the change in standards at the FDA for speed rather than efficacy, and some of the longterm effects prescription drugs have on the human body. All of these highlight the problems with modern day big pharma.

The only issue with the book is that 95% of it focuses on the harm that drugs and the pharmaceutical industry are causing, and even if there are some big flaws, there are many benefits to modern drugs which the author ignores. The author does realize his bias and offers a bit of a mea culpa in his conclusion by admitting that not all of big pharma is bad and they are not the sole problem. I actually thought the conclusion was one of the better parts of the book because the author went beyond reporting and offered actual solutions to the problems on which he reported, even if many of the solutions are likely unachievable.

Actually, there is one more issue and that is that this book doesn’t really have a market. If you’re already skeptical of the drug industry, this is just adds more flame to the fire, and if you’re not skeptical about the drug industry you probably don’t read or only read the bible or some other piece of propaganda from the NRA.

In conclusion, you should be skeptical about prescription drugs and the drug industry, this book is a good journalistic piece about what to be aware of and how we got to where we are, but it does overlook many of the benefits of prescription drugs.


And if you take prescription drugs, i definitely recommend this book.

[Lynne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Written from within a conventional, western medicine point of view, "Generation Rx" goes into some detail regarding the decades-long change in American acceptance of pharmaceutical drugs, as we've gone from "take only when nothing else works", to "drugs are natural and normal for all conditions (real or imagined)". He reviews how Big Pharma uses lobbying, government insiders, and advertising to doctors and potential patients to create a "need" for their products that often goes far beyond what's actually medically safe, and what the consequences of our "drugs uber alles" attitude is to ourselves, the environment, and those around us.
Not written to talk people out of taking pharmaceutical drugs, but calling on each of us to understand fully what we're signing up for, and to be willing to examine other healthier options.

[Tiina Lee · Rating 3 out of 5]

The title of this book is a little misleading because the focus is not really how drugs are altering our minds and bodies, but rather how they came to do so. Some of the chapters are rather dense and include a lot of nitty gritty details including who knew who and said what to whom kind of things. The point this book really drives home is that US healthcare, especially the pharmaceutical industry, is dictated entirely by economic factors. So, it is worth reading but be prepared to be frustrated and saddened by what you read.

[Jenine Young · Rating 4 out of 5]

this book was about how the advertising of drugs has changed over the years, as well as all the regulations around them. nothing we didn't already suspect, but it does give you something to think about next time your doctor prescribes drugs for a condition you may have

[Ashley · Rating 3 out of 5]

In one word, this book is DENSE. Chock-full of the history of pharmaceuticals I really learned a lot. It was crazy learning about the politics of pharmaceuticals and the pull they have due to the millions they invest in lobbying. One of the most fascinating things I read was the lack of selectivity for selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors — the term “selective” was a marketing ploy to make people think the drugs are cleaner. It was crazy to read about how drugs went from something that was considered a treatment and used sparingly to being incorporated into everyone’s daily lives. It is definitely a strong case for reduced drug use and does not accurately depict the benefits from the pharma industry, that being said I don’t think there is enough out there about how corrupt the industry is and how dark their history is.

[Jenine Young · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm not sure when I started or finished this but this delved into the drug industry. fascinating read, particularly the politics

[dejah_thoris · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is one of those dry but important books you should read. I'm sure we all know the general outlines of the story behind the rise of big pharma but the real truth behind the scenes will scare you even more. And for those unaware that ANY drug will wreak havoc on your liver and other internal organs read the third chapter. It's pretty scary. Fortunately, Critser offers up a somewhat simple but definitely practical solution to all this industry lobbying that obviously will never be implemented. (Thanks Obamacare!) Meanwhile, treat anything your doctor says with a grain of salt because if he's not being swayed by Uncle Sam he's probably being bribed by Merck.

[Bookmarks Magazine]

Critics were enthralled__and disturbed__by Critser's muckraking portrait of the pharmaceutical industry and the overmedicated public it purports to serve. The book is sure to make people think twice the next time they reach into their medicine cabinet. Critser presents compelling evidence that drugs are not adequately tested before they hit the market and that drug companies seem to be inventing ailments that their pills can cure. But the book is not just a big-business expos_

[Fishface · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was OK, in a dismaying way. Focuses on the ad campagns of Big Pharma and the changes in the laws that made it possible, with a lot of other information about the legal battles that had to be won before low-cost generics became available to consumers, and how encouraging people to see themselves as chronically ill has made it possible for the drug companies to cash in massively on their ADD and GERD drugs.

[Angela · Rating 3 out of 5]

Greg Critser explains how the pharmaceutical industry got big and how as an effect, America has become a toxified, guinea-pig, drug-addicted country. Ugh. Did you know the average number of prescription drugs taken per person, annually, was 12 in 2004?

I've only just started this book, but its been enough to make me cap the bottle of the one prescription I had been taking.

[Dolanite · Rating 2 out of 5]

Entertainingly written, but a terrifying topic.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pharmacy student primer on the bigger picture.

[Ruthie Sellers · Rating 4 out of 5]

This just confirms everything I have always suspected. Great read.