Bad Pharma
How Drug Companies Mislead Doctors and Harm Patients
-
-
3.8 • 4 Ratings
-
-
- $13.99
Publisher Description
We all feel uncomfortable about the role of profit in healthcare, we all have a vague notion that the global $600bn pharmaceutical industry is somehow evil and untrustworthy, but that sense rarely goes beyond a flaky, undifferentiated new age worldview. Bad Pharma puts real flesh on those bones, revealing the rigged evidence used by drug companies. Bad information means bad treatment decisions, which means patients suffer and die: there is no climactic moment of villainy, but drugs are used which are overpriced, less effective, and have more side effects. There are five cheap, easy things we can do to fix the problem. Bad Pharma takes a big dirty secret out into the open, and will provide a single focus for concerns people have both inside and outside medicine.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this searing expose of the pharmaceutical industry, physician and journalist Goldacre (Bad Science) uncovers a cesspool of corrupt practices designed to sell useless ordangerous drugs to an unsuspecting public. His main focus is the distortion of the science on which evidence-based medicine relies: drug companies, he argues, deploy deliberately biased clinical trials and twisted statistics to exaggerate their drugs benefits, while suppressing countless studies that show negative results or deadly side effects. Big Pharma s malign influence doesn t stop there, he contends; doctors prescribing practices are determined not by patients needs but by the insidious bribes and blandishments of sales representatives, the industry s ubiquitous "educational" programs, and fake research articles, journals, and even textbooks signed by independent academics but authored by industry-hired ghost writers. Goldacre s indictment fingers many culprits profit-hungry industry executives, lax regulatory agencies that collude in hiding crucial information from the public, and complaisant journal editors and university officials who put their imprimatur on blatant misconduct. Drawing on a wealth of research but writing squarely for laypeople, Goldacre conveys complicated scientific, medical, and ethical issues in simple, clear, plainspoken language that pulls no punches. The result is a smart, infuriating diagnosis of the rotten heart of the medical-industrial complex.
