The Truth About the Drug Companies: How They Deceive Us and What to Do About It

书籍介绍(英文)

Many Americans have wondered why prescription drugs have become so expensive while advertising for those drugs seems to grow exponentially. Former New England Journal of Medicine Editor Marcia Angell has some answers. The pharmaceutical industry, according to Angell, is fraught with corruption and doing a disservice to customers, the federal government, and to the medical establishment itself. In The Truth About the Drug Companies, Angell explains how a huge portion of the revenue generated by "Big Pharma" goes not into research and development but into aggressive marketing campaigns to sell their product. She describes how, even though the drug companies claim that it costs them an average of 802 million dollars per drug to develop new medicines, that figure is obscenely inflated since it factors in marketing as well as expected interest the company would have received had they invested the money in the open market. Meanwhile, Angell says, most of the R & D work is done by colleges and universities funded by the government. There are also problems with the drugs themselves, Angell indicates, since a majority are "me-too drugs", slightly modified versions of existing products which meant to address concerns of consumers most likely to spend money on pharmaceuticals. Thus, the market is filled with remarkably similar drugs to treat depression and high cholesterol while potentially life-saving medicines for diseases afflicting third-world countries are discontinued because they aren’t profitable. In the books most damning passage, Angell tells of the high-priced junkets offered to doctors, ostensibly offered as educational opportunities that seem to constitute little more than bribes. The prognosis for reform is a grim one, Angell indicates, due to the massive cash reserves and lobbying efforts of "Big Pharma." Indeed, that lobby was hard at work trying to discredit her claims immediately upon the book’s publication. But for anyone who’s paid a pharmacy bill, The Truth About the Drug Companies is a fascinating read. --John Moe

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.

许多美国人都在想，为什么处方药已经变得如此昂贵，而这些药物的广告似乎成倍增长。前新英格兰医学杂志编辑教授安格尔有一些答案。制药业，根据安格尔，充满了腐败和对得住客户，联邦政府，以及医疗机构本身。在关于制药公司真相，安格尔解释如何由“大制药公司产生”巨大的收入大部分用于研究和开发，却在积极的营销活动不卖他们的产品。她介绍如何，即使制药公司声称，它的成本他们的8.020亿美元，平均每个药物开发新的药物，这一数字是夸大了可耻的，因为它在市场营销以及预期的利益，公司会得到了他们投资的因素在公开市场上赚钱。同时，安格尔说，就在大部分研发工作是由学院和由政府资助的大学进行。也有与药物本身的问题，安格尔表示，因为大多数是“我也是毒品”，略加修改，这意味着现有的解决消费者关注的最有可能用于生产药品的钱版本。因此，市场充满了非常相似的药物治疗抑郁症，高胆固醇，而有可能挽救生命的困扰第三世界国家的疾病的药物已停产，因为他们不是盈利。在书籍最强烈的通道，安格尔告诉高价格提供给医生野餐的，表面上似乎提供的教育机会