Bottle of Lies

The Inside Story of the Generic Drug Boom

By: Katherine Eban

Narrated by: Katherine Eban

From an award-winning Fortune reporter, an explosive narrative investigation of the generic drug boom that reveals the life-threatening dangers posed by globalization—The Jungle for pharmaceuticals

The widespread use of generic drugs has been hailed as one of the most important public health developments of the twentieth century. Today, almost 90 percent of our pharmaceutical market is comprised of generics, the majority of which are manufactured overseas. We have been reassured by our pharmacists, our doctors, and our regulators that the generic and brand-name drugs are identical, generics just cheaper. But is this really true?

Katherine Eban’s Bottle of Lies exposes the widespread deceit behind generic drug manufacturing—creating terrifying risks for global health. Drawing on exclusive accounts from whistleblowers, inspectors, and regulators, as well as thousands of pages of confidential internal FDA documents, Eban reveals an industry where fraud is rampant, companies falsify data, and executives circumvent almost every principle of safe manufacturing to minimize cost and maximize profit. Meanwhile, patients unwittingly consume adulterated medicine with unpredictable and even life-threatening effects.

The story of generic drugs is truly global: it connects middle America to sub-Saharan Africa, China, India, and Brazil, and encompasses every market banking on the promise of a low-cost cure. Given that tens of millions of patients take drugs of dubious quality approved with fake data, the generics industry is the ultimate litmus test of globalization: what is the risk of moving drug manufacturing offshore, and is it worth the savings?

An investigation with international sweep, exotic settings, molecular mayhem, and big money at its core, Bottle of Lies reveals how the world’s greatest public-health innovation has become one of its most astonishing swindles.

Beware generic drugs

Outstanding investigative reporting on the problems with foreign manufactured generic drugs and lack of effective FDA oversight.

When you consider Pharmacy Benefit Managers’ (PBMs) push to have consumers use mail order pharmacies in states where state law requires generic substitution, and PBMs are driven by cost over effectiveness or safety, you should be very worried about the source of your generic drugs. Consider also that generics that perform dissimilarly to brand drugs may result in more visits to the provider or more tests to figure out the lack of response to a generic drug, costs the SYSTEM more but not affecting the PBM’s bottom line.

WHAT YOU CAN DO: Take your prescription bottles with you to every provider visit/exam. Highlight the manufacturer’s name on your pill bottle. Do not mix different bottles of the same medication because they may be manufactured by different companies. If you feel a medication is not working as intended, call your provider or ask the pharmacist if there has been a warning issued or a recall on that drug. Be a smart consumer and also write your legislators and demand more transparency and oversight of generic drug manufacturers.

changed my perspective

Because of this book I will never trust pharmaceuticals again. Even the ones made in America can be suspect. Tomorrow I have to pick up a bunch of prescriptions and I will be asking the pharmacist where they came from.

Chilling.

We read fiction to evade reality which, at times, is scarier than fiction.
This is one of those cases. This painstakingly and minutely documented book is a pleasant but terrifying read.
The author explores and shows the inner workings of the FDA and of the pharmaceutical industry and if the reading is matter of factly at times it felts like a suspense novel when I was hoping that something would happen to correct a trend or punish a misdeed.
Unfortunately "A bottle of lies" is not a novel, there is no happy ending unless you consider ss happy ending the awareness of the weakness of the FDA and the knowledge that a generic drug may not cure but harm you.

The life you save could be your own!

Essential knowledge as the author pulls back the curtain about the dangers of generic drug manufacturers but also shows the FDA needs improvement too!

in short: holy $#!t!!!! never taking generic again

everything. GREAT book. informative, well read, and engaging. and also a scary as hell, and not even just concerning generics. the whole pharmaceutical industry is just the modern day snake oil barker.