Opis
During her two decades at The New England Journal of Medicine, Dr. Marcia Angell had a front-row seat on the appalling spectacle ofthe pharmaceutical industry. She watched drug companies stray from their original mission of discovering and manufacturing useful drugs andinstead become vast marketing machines with unprecedented control overtheir own fortunes. She saw them gain nearly limitless influence overmedical research, education, and how doctors do their jobs. Shesympathized as the American public, particularly the elderly, struggledand increasingly failed to meet spiraling prescription drug prices. Now, in this bold, hard-hitting new book, Dr. Angell exposes the shockingtruth of what the pharmaceutical industry has become?and argues foressential, long-overdue change.
Currently Americans spend astaggering $200 billion each year on prescription drugs. As Dr. Angellpowerfully demonstrates, claims that high drug prices are necessary tofund research and development are unfounded: The truth is that drugcompanies funnel the bulk of their resources into the marketing ofproducts of dubious benefit. Meanwhile, as profits soar, the companiesbrazenly use their wealth and power to push their agenda throughCongress, the FDA, and academic medical centers.
Zeroing in onhugely successful drugs like AZT (the first drug to treat HIV/AIDS),Taxol (the best-selling cancer drug in history), and the blockbusterallergy drug Claritin, Dr. Angell demonstrates exactly how new productsare brought to market. Drug companies, she shows, routinely rely onpublicly funded institutions for their basic research; they rig clinical trials to make their products look better than they are; and they usetheir legions of lawyers to stretch out government-granted exclusivemarketing rights for years. They also flood the market with copycatdrugs that cost a lot more than the drugs they mimic but are no moreeffective.
The American pharmaceutical industry needs to be saved, mainly from itself, and Dr. Angell proposes a program of vitalreforms, which includes restoring impartiality to clinical research andsevering the ties between drug companies and medical education. Writtenwith fierce passion and substantiated with in-depth research, The Truth About the Drug Companies is a searing indictment of an industry that has spun out of control.
