Reviews of Bad Pharma How Drug Companies Mislead Doctors and Harm Patients

The author of Bad Pharma does an excellent job of shining a lite on the truths that the drug industry wants to stay hidden.

Those truths include how they mislead doctors and the medical industry through sales techniques, and manipulate consumers into becoming life-long drug customers. (For doctors, that industry influence begins in medical school and continues throughout their do.)

Nosotros also acquire truths about the internal workings of the medical academia, the U.South. FDA, and medical journals publishing.

The arguments in the volume are supported by research and data made available to the reader. The writer, Ben Goldacre, is a doctor and science journalist, and advocates for sticking to the scientific method, full disclosure and advocating for the interest of the patients. Hither are a few highlights from Bad Pharma.

Manipulating Clinical Drug Trials

Every bit consumers, how do we really know which drugs are best? The U.S. FDA protects the states, right? Well sort of. Read how trials for drugs and their perceived usefulness tin can be manipulated, poor trials get unpublished or outright suppressed, and underperforming trials are stopped early or the trial period extended.

Ane way to manipulate clinical trials starts at the beginning―the pattern of the trial. Often, few comparison studies are done. Far more than common are new drug studies going confronting placebo pills (that anybody knows don't work). This helps inflate findings, makes new drugs await more constructive than older drugs―considering they were never compared against each other.

Bad Pharma & the Cost of Doing Business

Larn how pharmaceutical companies legitimately funnel $10 one thousand thousand to $xx million a year to major medical journals including the New England Journal of Medicine and the Periodical of the American Medical Clan. And so, are nosotros surprised and then that studies funded by the pharmaceutical industry are much more probable to get published by these influential journals?

Straight to Consumer Drug Advert

Did yous know drug companies spend twice equally much on marketing and advertising as on researching and developing new drugs? (I was shocked.)

Of special involvement to me is the 'Direct to Consumer' drug advertising which has significantly increased drug sales in the U.Due south. 'Direct to Consumer' drug advertising is then misleading that information technology is banned in all countries except two: the U.S. and New Zealand. (No wonder that 70% of drug companies' turn a profit comes from the U.S.)

To be specific, I hate those misleading Goggle box commercials that target A-Fib patients. What these ads for anticoagulants don't tell yous is:

• You are on their meds for life! (they desire lifelong customers!)
• These meds do naught to treat your A-Fib (only your risk of stroke)
• A-Fib can exist cured (you lot don't take to be on meds for the residual of your life)

These ads for anticoagulant medications imply if you simply have their pill once a twenty-four hour period, you've taken care of your A-Fib.Wrong!

Well Written, Like shooting fish in a barrel to Understand

Bad Pharma, is written in an piece of cake-to-empathise style (you don't need a medical or science degree). If you wish, you tin skim through the book to go an overview, and so cease and read a topic of interest. Or you tin can dig in for a full read, including the authors'due south research and other references (documented in footnotes with citations.)

Cheque on Your Dr.

After reading how large Pharma may be influencing your dr., yous can now find out. In the U.S., with the passing of the Sunshine Human action (part of the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act), we can at present inquiry if a doctor has received pharma money to prescribe their products. Only go to the Open Payments or Dollars for Doctors website.

One of our tenets at A-Fib.com, is 'Brainwash Yourself'! If y'all want to be a more than savvy consumer of health care services, I highly recommend Bad Pharma. I besides recommend Ben Goldacre'south other volume, Bad Science.

Bonus Idea: If you pair this book with "Know Your Chances: Agreement Health Statistics" by Steven Woloshin, yous'll have a complete course on how the drug industry skillfully markets their products.

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Source: https://a-fib.com/book-review-bad-pharma-by-ben-goldacre/

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