Our Daily Meds: How The Pharmaceutical Companies Transformed Themselves Into Slick Marketing Machines And Hooked The Nation On Prescription Drugs Download Free (EPUB, PDF)
An "angrily illuminating" (The New York Times) exposé of Big Pharma's corrupting influence in America todayIn the last thirty years, pharmaceutical companies have seized control of American medicine by putting their marketers in charge. They invent diseases in order to sell the pills that "cure" them. They sway doctors by giving them resort vacatopms, gourmet meals, and fistfuls of cash. They advertise prescription drugs at NASCAR races, on subways, and even in churches. Medicines can save lives, but the relentless promotion of these products has come at tremendous cost. Prescription pills taken as directed are estimated to kill one American every five minutes. More Americans are addicted to medications than cocaine. And roads have become less safe as the over-medicated take to the wheel. In Our Daily Meds, journalist Melody Petersen connects the dots to show how subtle, far-reaching, and dangerous Big Pharma's powers have become.
Paperback: 448 pages
Publisher: Picador; 1 Reprint edition (March 3, 2009)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0312428251
ISBN-13: 978-0312428259
Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 1 x 8.5 inches
Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (72 customer reviews)
Best Sellers Rank: #312,980 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #42 in Books > Business & Money > Industries > Pharmaceutical & Biotechnology #257 in Books > Textbooks > Medicine & Health Sciences > Medicine > Basic Sciences > Pharmacology #375 in Books > Textbooks > Medicine & Health Sciences > Administration & Policy > Health Care Delivery
So you thought you had already heard every possible method of perversion of ethics, morals, and the entire USA economy by Big Pharma? Petersen made an important point near the end (p318) on the value of Big Pharma's drugs: "In 1980 a 65-year-old American woman could be comforted by the fact that her expected life span was longer than that of her contemporaries living almost anywhere else in the world. Now with access to an almost unlimited supply of the pharmaceutical industry's newest and most expensive medicines, an American woman of 65 has lost her place... by 2002, among 30 nations, American women came in 17th." She also wrote that an American man of 65 can expect a shorter life than his Mexican counterpart. This would have been a good place to note that USA life expectancy at birth in 2006 was only 13th in the world at 78 years despite the biggest per capita expenditure on health in the world by far. Even finding information on death by drugs was shown by Petersen to be more difficult because the percent of patients dying in hospitals who are autopsied is down to 8% from 50% in 1945 (p308). Pinning the cause of death on a drug is fraught with danger for the providers, so patients killed by various drugs are said to have a cause of death of their original illness, not the drug used to treat its symptoms! "Imitating neighborhood grocers, the drugmakers offer coupons, free gifts, and deals to buy six prescriptions and get one free." (p4). Drugs for children are flavored and colored to mimic candy (p4). Plots of TV shows are based on brand name drugs, at times based on suggestions of their makers (p5). Side effects of drugs are treated with other drugs.
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