Just finished reading a disturbing but fascinating book "Selling Sickness: How the World's Biggest Pharmaceutical Companies are Turning us all into Patients" by Ray Monahan and Alan Cassels.
If you have any interest, and who of us are not, in the power of the large pharmaceutical companies influence our medical care, then you should read this book.
It is scary to read how the "big pharmas" influence so many aspects of the use of medication - it includes regulation, policy, research and the "seduction" of physicians with money and all types of incentives. This book certainly higlights the need for stronger regulation in the area of the relationships between the companies and those who prescribe the medication.
What is also frightening is that their international research has demonstrated the impact of shrinking government support for research and evaluation, and consequently pushes the development of drugs to an industry that is only focussed on growing profits to shareholders - a scary prospect.
