The Truth About the Drug Companies

How They Deceive Us and What to Do About It

By: Marcia Angell

Narrated by: Kate Reading

During her two decades at The New England Journal of Medicine, Dr. Marcia Angell had a front-row seat on the appalling spectacle of the pharmaceutical industry. She watched drug companies stray from their original mission of discovering and manufacturing useful drugs and instead become vast marketing machines with unprecedented control over their own fortunes. She saw them gain nearly limitless influence over medical research, education, and how doctors do their jobs. She sympathized as the American public, particularly the elderly, struggled and increasingly failed to meet spiraling prescription drug prices. Now, in this bold, hard-hitting new book, Dr. Angell exposes the shocking truth of what the pharmaceutical industry has become–and argues for essential, long-overdue change.

Currently Americans spend a staggering $200 billion each year on prescription drugs. As Dr. Angell powerfully demonstrates, claims that high drug prices are necessary to fund research and development are unfounded: The truth is that drug companies funnel the bulk of their resources into the marketing of products of dubious benefit. Meanwhile, as profits soar, the companies brazenly use their wealth and power to push their agenda through Congress, the FDA, and academic medical centers.

Zeroing in on hugely successful drugs like AZT (the first drug to treat HIV/AIDS), Taxol (the best-selling cancer drug in history), and the blockbuster allergy drug Claritin, Dr. Angell demonstrates exactly how new products are brought to market. Drug companies, she shows, routinely rely on publicly funded institutions for their basic research; they rig clinical trials to make their products look better than they are; and they use their legions of lawyers to stretch out government-granted exclusive marketing rights for years. They also flood the market with copycat drugs that cost a lot more than the drugs they mimic but are no more effective.

The American pharmaceutical industry needs to be saved, mainly from itself, and Dr. Angell proposes a program of vital reforms, which includes restoring impartiality to clinical research and severing the ties between drug companies and medical education. Written with fierce passion and substantiated with in-depth research, The Truth About the Drug Companies is a searing indictment of an industry that has spun out of control.©2004 Marcia Angell; (P)2007 Books on Tape Inc.

Critic reviews

“Dr. Angell’s case is tough, persuasive, and troubling.”
—The New York Times

“In what should serve as the Fast Food Nation of the drug industry, Angell… presents a searing indictment of ‘big pharma’ as corrupt and corrupting.”
—Publishers Weekly

“The Truth About the Drug Companies is a sober, clear-eyed attack on the excesses of drug company power… a lucid, persuasive, and highly important book.”
—The Boston Sunday Globe

“Her prose is clear and readable… Angell does an excellent job [making] a convincing case against Big Pharma.”
—Chicago Sun-Times

“If you’ve ever suffered prescription drug sticker shock, Dr. Marcia Angell’s The Truth About the Drug Companies is the book for you.”
—Newsday

“In-depth and insightful”
—Rocky Mountain News

“Put your money on Angell. We need to know why drugs cost what they do, and we need to know how our physicians choose the drugs they give us.”
—St. Louis Post Dispatch

“Engaging and well-written”
—San Antonio Express-News

"Pharamceutical companies will need a new miracle pain reliever after the whipping they receive from Marcia Angell in her book….a starting point for serious discussion."
--The Hartford Courant

"If informed criticism contains the sharpest stings, author Marcia Angell's jolting indictument of 'Big Pharma' might just be enough to pierce the beast's hide."
--Minneapolis Star Tribune

True 10 years ago and still true today.

Would you listen to The Truth About the Drug Companies again? Why?

Yes. As a healthcare researcher this was an eye-opener into how pharma did business and still does today, even if a little less openly than before. As a person who had studied cases of pharma misconduct in the last few years I was surprised to learn from this book about the same practices 10 years ago. Nowadays, Ben Goldacre et al are still talking about these issues. I just wonder when it will end and truthfulness and transparency prevail?

Good information that should be spread further!

Few stories in the book were known to me before my reading, yet its so much better to know the entire big picture and see all pieces of the puzzle put together.

Currently the pharmaceutical industry and the economy as a whole has so many ailments, which should and can be cured. Each of us can help with the cure by sharing this knowledge. Some of the things mentioned in this book, is not just wrong, but outrageously wrong.

The narrator is excellent. Its hard to be distracted from her. She knows best all the points to stress, or to lighten up!

Definitely recommend!

Screed Against the Pharmaceutical Companies

Having worked in the pharmaceutical contract research industry, I have observed that for the most part the author's fundamental complaints about the pharmaceutical industry are correct. The public desperately needs to know about how the industry has gotten out of control. Its greed is now a major drain on the health and wealth of the world, but most particularly that of the United States. This book is an excoriating expose of the industry.

For at least my taste, this book would have been much better if it were not so much a one-sided rant. The invention, development, and marketing of pharmaceuticals is complex and requires trade-offs. The author tends towards going over the top about about the sins of the drug companies and sees only what's bad. There's lots of sin to write about. But there's not a hint of balance to the author's work. A more reasonable presentation, with a little more perspective on why the drug companies see things as they do and act as they do, would have made the author's arguments more compelling and her book more interesting.

The author's tone is exacerbated by the reader's tone, which is chronically scolding. It's not pleasant to listen to hours of scolding. Further marring the performance is that reader mispronounces several key names that are important to the story and are repeated many times, such as the name of Senator Birch Bayh.

The author's fundamental points are critically important and should be widely known. For just that fact this book is worth reading. But the message will probably not become more widely known until it is delivered by a better author.

Pronunciation

This is a very important book. Something needs to be done about our pharmaceutical industry. But the narrations is poor. It's presentation is difficult at times to listen to due to terrible pronunciation. Birch Bayh is called Bay instead of By and due to his legistation's importance, it is repeated many many times. Bona Fide is called bona fidEE. And many more. Don't readers have producers? Does anyone correct these?

Good read, vital information

I listened to this audio on a long trip to Virginia, it kept me awake and alert. I found the audio quite statisfactory, and the information clear and easy to understand. I was too engrossed by the subject to be concerned about pronunciation. It seems we all must be our own advocates considering the current state of our health system. Dr. Angell's description of how the drug industry uses powerful marketing and questionable research is indeed important information.