An experienced investigative journalist, Fried set out to explore the pharmaceutical safety net his wife had fallen through. His quest became a 5-year probe of the entire legal drug culture, beginning with an article for Philadelphia magazine on what he discovered about the new antibiotic his wife had taken. The article won the 1994 National Magazine Award and set off a FDA investigation. The single most profitable legal manufacturing industry in the world, pharmaceuticals are dominated by competitive companies with vast resources for marketing and promoting their products. Fried found the medical community itself to be very vulnerable to such tactics.
Doctors receive minimal education in pharmacology in medical school.
This book presents dramatic accounts of the drug development and approval system. AIDS is an example. Fried critiques the FDA and the pressure on its employees from the powerful drug companies and political pressures from politicians committed to deregulation. In Bitter Pills, Fried gives readers disturbing reason to question these assumptions.