The Truth About the Drug Companies
Subtitle: How They Deceive Us and What to Do About It
Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks
Published: August 9, 2005
Language: eng
Number of pages: 352
ISBN-13: 9780375760945
First sentence: 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.