January 30, 2012
“We are quite literally taking drugs to save the lives of companies who have a greater interest in the vitality of the diseases they market drugs for than in our well-being,” argues British psychiatrist Healy (Let Them Eat Prozac) in this scathing critique of the $900 billion global pharmaceutical industry. Healy chronicles the rise of blockbuster drugs like Prozac and Vioxx and how drug companies hyped them while downplaying their hazards. He takes particular aim at the outsourcing to private companies of clinical drug trials, once the domain of the National Institutes of Health and academics and now a $30 billion industry. He is particularly incisive on how the drug industry distorts medical care by, say, encouraging the use of statins like Lipitor rather than advising patients to lose weight. But he seems contrarian in opposing chronic disease management because it provides drug companies the opportunity for long-term sales of drugs that manage, but do not cure, a condition. Still, Healy’s contrarian streak and sharpness make this a disturbing, well-documented indictment that echoes many others in recent years, and one worth heeding. Agent: Beverly Slopen, Beverly Slopen Literary Agency (Canada).
April 1, 2012
Healy (psychiatry, Cardiff Univ.; Let Them Eat Prozac: The Unhealthy Relationship Between the Pharmaceutical Industry and Depression) presents a well-documented and well-executed case against big pharma, forcing readers to think about both the pharmaceutical industry's role in their health care and the new development of drugs. Tracing how drug development and medical tests transitioned throughout the 20th century from addressing the diagnosis and cure of life-threatening diseases (e.g., X-rays, polio) to chronic disease management with potentially no end date (e.g., bone-density scans, bipolar disorder), the book tackles pharmaceutical companies' role in negligent clinical trials, ghostwriting in medical journals, new medical tests that encourage diagnosis, and the rise of blockbuster drugs. While other books address drug marketing (e.g., Marcia Angell's The Truth About the Drug Companies and John Abramson's Overdosed America), this title is much broader. Healy details the shift toward "lifestyle drugs," changes in patent law, hidden clinical trial results, off-label drugs use, and other topics. VERDICT Well written if sometimes dense, this book is for anyone who wishes to learn more about how the practice of medicine and development of drugs is changing.--Leigh Mihlrad, National Inst. of Health Lib., Bethesda, MD
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