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 HIVAIDS, 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.
From the Hardcover edition.
關於作者：
Former editor-in-chief of The New England Journal of
Medicine and now a member of Harvard Medical School’s
Department of Social Medicine, Marcia Angell is a nationally
recognized authority in the field of health policy and medical
ethics and an outspoken critic of the health care system.
Time magazine named her one of the twenty-five most
influential people in America. Dr. Angell is the author of
Science on Trial: The Clash of Medical Evidence and the
Law in the Breast Implant Case.
From the Hardcover edition.
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