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.
