Bad Pharma

Description

Goldacre uncovers a shockingly corrupt industry in a passionate and accessible manner. His genuine and thorough research brings to light some revelatory tales of the Pharmaceutical industry and investigates the motives behind our treatments. Following the bestselling Bad Science, which mercilessly exposed the evils of bogus, pseudo-scientific remedies, Ben Goldacre puts the global pharmaceutical industry under the microscope The $600 billion pharmaceutical industry spends more on marketing than it does on research and development. It distorts and suppresses the results of clinical trials if they are unfavourable. New diseases are invented in order to swell profits. Doctors are kept in the dark about which drugs are the best for their patients. Patients’ pressure groups are covertly sponsored by pill manufacturers. Authoritative-looking journals can be nothing more than disguised advertising brochures. Papers, supposedly by respected academics, are in fact ghostwritten by drugs companies. The offences are countless and the consequences are felt by us all. What we trust to cure us may be utterly ineffectual or actually harmful.