Management Today review of Big Pharma

Dr Richard Horton, editor of the Lancet, describes Big Pharma as a 'must-read' in the Febuary 2006 issue of Management Today.

This urgent exposure reveals a pharmaceutical industry suffering a catastrophic collapse in its reputation. Can it heal itself?

"The pharmaceutical industry displays the best and worst traits of modern western democratic societies. There is no other entity today that takes the arcane products of scientific research and translates their remote prospects into the magic of medicine. The astonishing alchemy of this process is the apotheosis of capitalism.

"The ambition and achievement that market states encourage in the service of human illness are some of the most remarkable attributes of our species ever recorded. And yet the mendacious excesses that drug companies indulge in at moments of weakness and crisis also point to some of the most venal and debauched aspects of human life.

"The industry manufactures diseases as well as drugs. It loads the dice of research before that research has even begun. It creates incentives to cheat. It manipulates science to serve marketing, not medicine. It conceals bad news. It is willing to tolerate epidemics of harm caused by its products in order to protect profits. It brutalises compassion, turning disease into simply one more commodity to be traded and exploited. ..

"In Big Pharma, Jacky Law, a specialist journalist, ably traces the origins and recent history of these extreme boundaries. She recognises and pays tribute to the real successes that industry has delivered.

"This book is a must-read. Law has drawn on a remarkable range of sources to produce an urgent analysis of one of the most powerful but little-understood industries. Her arguments are compelling and her conclusions disturbing.

http://www.mtmagazine.co.uk/public/news/index.cfm?fuseaction=fulldetails&newsUID=8f34b560-4629-4cbc-adef-2be609248b27

Good Clinical Practice Journal review of Big Pharma

Good Clinical Practice Journal issue March 2006. Review by Jenine Willis

"With the recent scares - namely with the COX-2 inhibitors and SSRIs - patients have even more cause to worry about their health. Are treatments doing more harm than good? This book isn't going to reassure patients, but it does try to arm them with information and an understanding of the limitations of healthcare and medicines.

"Although not overplayed, the book does point out how patients could help themselves if they have more realistic expectations of what medicines can do. The author explores the placebo effect and points out that it could play a positive role provided patients have faith in their doctors...

"Big Pharma's strength lies in its broad brush approach. It is a panoramic view of the network of connecting, conflicting and complementing interests of the three main stakeholders in healthcare: industry, medicine and the public. And in this it is an achievement which I haven't seen elsewhere...

http://www.pjbpubs.com/gcpj/index.htm

Evening Standard Review of Big Pharma

Extract of review by William Leith in the London Evening Standard February 13, 2006

"Throughout this book, Law tells us that the profit motive perverts the course of medicine, and making us feel iller than we are is a key tactic.

"Of the pharmaceutical companies, or Big Pharma, as she collectively demonises them, Law says, 'Increasingly we allow them to set yardsticks that suggest our collective wellness is less than it might be.'

"If you read this book, you'll ask yourself serious questions about every pill you take, whether it's a beta-blocker or an aspirin. You'll think: 'Is this good for me? Or is it good for them?'"