Review: Good Exposure Re Corporate Greed in the Medical Industry - but Fails To Provide Any Level of Accountability to the Patients
Rating: 2 out of 5
Date: 12 8, 2013
Think the book did a good job of portraying corporate greed and the complicity of government in enabling corporations to manipulate "the rules" to serve their own, rather than public, interests.  I could not, however, sympathize with the so-called victims in this story - and, in particular, the "heroine" of this story - a drug addictions counselor who (1) blames the doctor/drug company when she becomes addicted to the sedative drug she virtually demanded be prescribed for her; (2) misuses her position in the clinic in which she works to have a urinalysis done on a "fellow addict" under the name of another patient; and (3) devices a plan to accept "hush" money from the sedative manufacturer which she will share with the "fellow addict" - a plan that leaves her unable to testify against the company, but virtually "capitulates" the "fellow addict" to the front line, where he must act as a representative for her and the other victims in the court fight against the company.  To me, it just wasn't credible that an addictions counselor would not be aware of the drug's  potential addictive quality. (When I am prescribed a new drug, I research it on the Internet - why didn't she?)  But what I found particularly egregious was her slapping someone else's name on a urine sample that turns out to be positive for drugs.  The book spends a lot of time discussing the fact that the sample, because of the manner in which it was obtained, can not be used as evidence in the trial against the corporation.  What the book totally ignores though is that there is some unfortunate person "out there" who now has a false record in his file indicating he failed a drug test - a record that is going to remain in his file forever.  Overall, the tone of the book was a bit too moralizing - placing the bulk of the addiction problem on the doctors who are prescribing the medication, while presenting those who took the drug as victims despite the fact that many of these victims (including the 2 main addicts) sought out doctors who would prescribe this medication. (No, I am not a doctor.)  I also found the book to be overly long - too many repetitive digressions about the drug's side effects & the company's attempts to minimize publicity about these effects.  The story could have effectively been told in a more concise format.