The Truth About the Drug Companies

Description

During her two decades at The New England Journal of Medicine, Dr. Marcia Angell had a front-row seat on the appalling spectacle of the pharmaceutical industry. She watched drug companies stray from their original mission of discovering and manufacturing useful drugs and instead become vast marketing machines with unprecedented control over their own fortunes. She saw them gain nearly limitless influence over medical research, education, and how doctors do their jobs. She sympathized as the American public, particularly the elderly, struggled and increasingly failed to meet spiraling prescription drug prices. Now, in this bold, hard-hitting new book, Dr. Angell exposes the shocking truth of what the pharmaceutical industry has become--and argues for essential, long-overdue change.Currently Americans spend a staggering $200 billion each year on prescription drugs. As Dr. Angell powerfully demonstrates, claims that high drug prices are necessary to fund research and development are unfounded: The truth is that drug companies funnel the bulk of their resources into the marketing of products of dubious benefit. Meanwhile, as profits soar, the companies brazenly use their wealth and power to push their agenda through Congress, the FDA, and academic medical centers.Zeroing in on hugely successful drugs like AZT (the first drug to treat HIV/AIDS), Taxol (the best-selling cancer drug in history), and the blockbuster allergy drug Claritin, Dr. Angell demonstrates exactly how new products are brought to market. Drug companies, she shows, routinely rely on publicly funded institutions for their basic research; they rig clinical trials to make their products look better than they are; and they use their legions of lawyers to stretch out government-granted exclusive marketing rights for years. They also flood the market with copycat drugs that cost a lot more than the drugs they mimic but are no more effective.The American pharmaceutical industry needs to be saved, mainly from itself, and Dr. Angell proposes a program of vital reforms, which includes restoring impartiality to clinical research and severing the ties between drug companies and medical education. Written with fierce passion and substantiated with in-depth research, The Truth About the Drug Companies is a searing indictment of an industry that has spun out of control.

First Sentence

What does the eight-hundred-pound gorilla do?

Excerpt

What does the eight-hundred-pound gorilla do?

Description

In this explosive expose of the drug companies and how they are ripping us off, Marcia Angell, M.D., a doctor, medical journalist, and a former editor of the respected New England Journal of Medicine, reveals the many ways in which the pharmaceutical industry has moved away from its original purpose of finding and producing useful new drugs. Now primarily a marketing machine that produces drugs of questionable benefit, the industry uses its wealth and power to co-opt such institutions as the U.S. Congress, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), academic medical centers, as well as the medical profession. In spite of a lack of innovative drugs and continuously growing prices, the drug companies invest most of their time and money in marketing, legal maneuvers to extend patient rights, and government lobbying to prevent price regulation.

Subjects

Other Editions

• The Truth About the Drug Companies: How They Deceive Us and What to Do About ItRandom House Trade Paperbacks2005-08-09
• The truth about the drug companiesRandom House2004-01-01
• The Truth About the Drug CompaniesElectronic resourceRandom House Publishing Group2004-01-01
• The Truth About the Drug CompaniesRandom House2004-08-24
• The truth about the drug companiesScribe Publications2005-01-01
• Yao chang hei muShang zhou chu ban Cheng bang wen hua shi ye gu fen you xian gong si2006-01-01