Bad Pharma: How Drug Companies Mislead Doctors and Harm Patients
In the follow-up to his popular Bad Science (2010), British medical doctor Goldacre reveals how pharmaceutical companies mislead doctors and hurt patients. They “sponsor” trials, which tend to yield favorable results, while negative results often remain unreported. He also reports that drug companies spend twice as much on marketing and advertising as on researching and developing new drugs. Unfortunately for U.S. readers, he focuses largely on the UK, but ghost authorship of studies and “continuing medical education” boondoggle trips for doctors are problematic everywhere, and he does refer to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on multiple occasions. And everyone, everywhere should feel unsettled by his discovery that pharmaceutical companies funnel $10 million to $20 million a year to such major medical journals as the New England Journal of Medicine and the Journal of the American Medical Association. Not surprisingly, he notes, studies funded by the pharmaceutical industry are that much more likely to get published in these influential journals. Goldacre’s essential exposé will prompt readers to ask more questions before automatically popping a doctor-prescribed pill. --Karen Springen