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Drugs for Life: How Pharmaceutical Companies Define Our Health
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Publisher's Summary
Every year the average number of prescriptions purchased by Americans increases, as do healthcare expenditures, which are projected to reach one-fifth of the U.S. gross domestic product by 2020. In Drugs for Life, Joseph Dumit considers how our burgeoning consumption of medicine and cost of healthcare not only came to be, but also came to be taken for granted. For several years, Dumit attended pharmaceutical industry conferences; spoke with marketers, researchers, doctors, and patients; and surveyed the industry's literature regarding strategies to expand markets for prescription drugs. He concluded that underlying the continual growth in medications, disease categories, costs, and insecurity is a relatively new perception of ourselves as inherently ill and in need of chronic treatment. This perception is based on clinical trials that we have largely outsourced to pharmaceutical companies. Those companies in turn see clinical trials as investments and measure the value of those investments by the size of the market and profits that they will create. They only ask questions for which the answer is more medicine. Drugs for Life challenges our understanding of health, risks, facts, and clinical trials, the very concepts used by pharmaceutical companies to grow markets to the point where almost no one can imagine a life without prescription drugs.
The book is published by Duke University Press.
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- Laurie
- 08-29-15
Snoozefest
I work in the industry, so I am interested in books written about pharmaceuticals. This book is mind numbing, however. The author brings up many interesting points, but it just so boring and flat that the phone book would have held my interest more. If I hadn't just returned the previous book, I would have asked for my credit back for this one. Skip it.
1 of 2 people found this review helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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- EnzMar
- 11-16-18
More than a book about pharma, it's excellent!
This book will tell you about the societal structures, cultures and conflicts in the 'health market' and open your eyes to the modern day challenges in pharma and why all of us are pressured into taking 'drugs for life'. A must read for anyone interested in health