Selling Sickness: How the World’s Biggest Pharmaceutical Companies Are Turning Us All Into Patients
Selling Sickness: How the World’s Largest Pharmaceutical Companies Are Turning Us All Into Patients Books
- ISBN13: 9781560258568
- Shape up: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
Product Description
Thirty years ago, Henry Gadsden, the head of Merck, one of the world’s largest drug companies, told Fortune magazine that he sought after Merck to be more like chewing gum maker Wrigley’s. It had long been his dream to make drugs for healthy people so that Merck may possibly “sell to everyone.” Gadsden’s dream now drives the marketing machinery of the most profitable industry on earth. Drug companies are systematically working to widen the very boundaries that define illness, and the markets for tablets grow ever larger. Mild problems are redefined as serious illness and common complaints are labeled as medical conditions requiring drug treatments. Gooey noses are now allergic rhinitis, PMS has become a psychiatric disorder, and hyperactive children have ADD. When it comes to conditions like high cholesterol or low bone density, being “at risk” is sold as a disease. Selling Sickness reveals how widening the boundaries of illness and lowering the threshold for treatments is making millions of new patients and billions in new profits, in turn threatening to bankrupt health-care systems all over the world. As more and more of run of the mill life becomes medicalized, the industry moves ever closer to Gadsden’s dream: “selling to everyone.”
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There is a revolution in health care and it starts with the patient. The more a patient understands about their health, in all likelihood, the healthier they will be. Health care expenditure are skyrocketing but most of the expense comes from hospitalization, nursing home care and physician visits. Only 10% of our nation’s health care expenditure are due to the use of pharmaceuticals. Healthy lifestyle choices and preventative medicine are the only ways to improve your quality of life and keep a lid on expenditure. Many conditions have no symptoms and if left untreated can lead to even larger issues that require more invasive therapy. Patients who handle their high blood pressure with tablets prior to having a stroke or kidney failure have an improved quality of life. Patients with symptoms of erectile dysfunction may learn that they have underlying cardiovascular disease that can be corrected without surgery. High cholesterol may lead to blocked arteries that may possibly require an pricey by-pass surgery unless statin drugs are used. Depression certainly lowers the quality of life of an individual and may impact all aspects of their private relationships and professional life. This book seems to take none of this sincerely. Even as apt wealthy themselves, the authors poke fun at very real issues that if not corrected will lead to more serious problems down the road. The science behind discovery of drug is very complex and education of the patient is a high priority. The authors of this book should have spent their time alerting their readers as to what symptoms should be recognized and presented to a physician. By giving these conditions names, the patient can communicate and know their disease even as receiving the treatment they need. If you buy this book, I would question that you do not complain about the high cost of healthcare or your poor health.
Rating: 1 / 5
A must-read for anyone who ever went to the doctor.
Rating: 5 / 5
This book does an brilliant job exposing where some companies have done incorrect. I can write the same book about nearly any industry in the people. Now how many of them have developed a life-changing drug like Enbrel? As others have pointed out, this book (and most others like it) do a miserable job of providing context. Our life expectancies are lower than other industrialized nations because we are the fatest people on the earth, I can only presume what it would be like if we didn’t take the drugs that keep us alive. Can people exercise and take care of themselves and avoid a lot of these issues? Sure they can-but they don’t and then they go to the doctor expecting a miracle cure. Can they not feed their small kids pounds of high frucotse corn syrup and avoid turming them into 20 year ancient diabetics, sure they can-but they don’t. Every doctor I’ve ever been to or talked to says they tell every patient to exercise and watch their diet first (before ever prescribing anything). When the patient fails to comply then the doctor does what they reckon is the best thing to keep their patient alive. Pharmas certainly do incorrect things, like any other business, and they need to be policed, but they should not be the scapegoat for sensationalist journalists (who are, guess what, selling the news/books) and small-sighted politicians are are unwilling or unable to deal with the larger healthcare issues our nation now faces.
Read this book, but please read others as well (that ought to make Amazon pleased!)-try some that don’t agree with what the media has programmed you to reckon about huge pharma-if you can find any.
Rating: 3 / 5
I am a family physician who does indeed judge that there is too much medical care in the US. Nevertheless this book cannot see the forest for the trees. There are many issues where there is clearly questionable value provided by the medical industry, but I dont reckon that they found those. Some of the areas they have chosen, they may be quite incorrect on, such as the value of lowering blood pressure. Other areas they did choose to address have not become major issues because physicians and patients are not as easily duped as they may reckon. I may possibly go on for some, but lets just that the book is one sided and not very excellent.
Rating: 2 / 5
The book presents ten examples of unethical conduct by pharmaceutical compnies in order to promote their products. The tactics include misrepresenting statistical facts, overstating health risks, influencing medical authorities, making new medical conditions in order to sell drugs for them and so on.
All the facts in the book are right. But the impression the book makes is skewed. Modern medicine cannot exist without pharmaceutical industry, and the relationship between it and medical professionals is more complex than described in this text. I also judge that most doctors deserve more credit when it comes to choosing treatments for their patients.
But opinions aside, the book really is getting dull as it progresses, probably because it is clear how each chapter will end soon after the beginning. I also expected less political and more medical in rank. I also reckon the authors should have touched on other reasons of proliferation of drug culture in modern society.
Overall I was disappointed.
Rating: 3 / 5