The Truth About the Drug Companies: How They Deceive Us and What to Do About ItRandom House Publishing Group, 9 aug 2005 - 352 pagina's During her two decades at The New England Journal of Medicine, Dr. Marcia Angell had a front-row seat on the appalling spectacle of the pharmaceutical industry. She watched drug companies stray from their original mission of discovering and manufacturing useful drugs and instead become vast marketing machines with unprecedented control over their own fortunes. She saw them gain nearly limitless influence over medical research, education, and how doctors do their jobs. She sympathized as the American public, particularly the elderly, struggled and increasingly failed to meet spiraling prescription drug prices. Now, in this bold, hard-hitting new book, Dr. Angell exposes the shocking truth of what the pharmaceutical industry has become–and argues for essential, long-overdue change. Currently Americans spend a staggering $200 billion each year on prescription drugs. As Dr. Angell powerfully demonstrates, claims that high drug prices are necessary to fund research and development are unfounded: The truth is that drug companies funnel the bulk of their resources into the marketing of products of dubious benefit. Meanwhile, as profits soar, the companies brazenly use their wealth and power to push their agenda through Congress, the FDA, and academic medical centers. Zeroing in on hugely successful drugs like AZT (the first drug to treat HIV/AIDS), Taxol (the best-selling cancer drug in history), and the blockbuster allergy drug Claritin, Dr. Angell demonstrates exactly how new products are brought to market. Drug companies, she shows, routinely rely on publicly funded institutions for their basic research; they rig clinical trials to make their products look better than they are; and they use their legions of lawyers to stretch out government-granted exclusive marketing rights for years. They also flood the market with copycat drugs that cost a lot more than the drugs they mimic but are no more effective. The American pharmaceutical industry needs to be saved, mainly from itself, and Dr. Angell proposes a program of vital reforms, which includes restoring impartiality to clinical research and severing the ties between drug companies and medical education. Written with 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. |
Inhoudsopgave
The 200 Billion Colossus | 3 |
The Creation of a New Drug | 21 |
How Much Does the Pharmaceutical Industry Really Spend on R D? | 37 |
Just How Innovative Is This Industry? | 52 |
MeToo DrugsThe Main Business of the Pharmaceutical Industry | 74 |
How Good Are New Drugs? | 94 |
The Hard Sell Lures Bribes and Kickbacks | 115 |
Patent GamesStretching Out Monopolies | 173 |
Overige edities - Alles bekijken
The Truth About the Drug Companies: How They Deceive Us and What to Do About It Marcia Angell Gedeeltelijke weergave - 2004 |
The Truth about the Drug Companies: How They Deceive Us and what to Do about it Marcia Angell Fragmentweergave - 2004 |
The Truth about the Drug Companies: How They Deceive Us and what to Do about it Marcia Angell Fragmentweergave - 2004 |
Veelvoorkomende woorden en zinsdelen
academic advertising agency ALLHAT American AstraZeneca Bayh-Dole big pharma biotechnology companies blockbuster blood pressure Boston Globe brand-name drugs Bristol-Myers Squibb called cancer Celebrex centers Chapter Clarinex Claritin clinical trials costs direct-to-consumer disease doctors dollars dose Drug Administration drug benefit drug companies drug prices drugs already drugs approved drugs from Canada dustry England Journal Epogen exclusive marketing rights fact FDA approval FDA's Food and Drug Gardiner Harris GlaxoSmithKline Gleevec Hatch-Waxman Health and Human industry's innovative drugs Institute Journal of Medicine licensed Lilly look manufacturers me-too drugs Medicaid medical education Medicare ment Merck million Neurontin Nexium Novartis off-label Orange Book panies patent Paxil percent Pfizer pharmaceutical industry pharmacies Phase IV studies pill placebo prescribe prescription drugs Prilosec profits promote Prozac reported Schering-Plough scription drugs sell Senator spend sponsored statins Taxol testing tion treat treatment Vioxx Wall Street Journal Washington York