Generation RX: How Prescription Drugs Are Altering American Lives, Minds, and Bodies

Everyone should read this book. It opens your eyes to what goes on behind the scenes of the pharmaceutical industry and the aspects of direct to consumer advertising of medications. This will encourage people to question their doctors and force them to use their knowledge instead of following the bribes drug reps give them. This book also teaches us to trust our pharmacists and make use of their offer to counsel. This book could change the health care industry for the better.

Here, as in his FAT LAND, Critser performs a public service in the best possible format. Major issues like the growth of the drug culture are usually presented with more technical detail than the non-specialist can stand or with lurid alarmism. Here Critser condenses huge amounts of data and first hand research in a prose that is both lucid and interesting. In a country where every other ad is for a drug, each citizen should read this exciting volume.

If nothing else, this book will make you think twice before filling that latest prescription from your doctor or the multitudes of drugs we are already putting in our bodies. Of cousre, this book is biased against Big Pharma but isn't that sort of to be expected? After all, they have had a part in how we perceived prescriptions and how/if we comply we comply when our physicians load us up with prescriptions. I'm not saying I agree with everything in the book- because I certainly don't, but I think it is a good read and it is though provoking.

Like many other American's I have taken perscription medicines. Often I have wondered why I am getting the script for the latest drug I have seen on TV when I know other, cheaper drugs have worked in the past. This book really delves into the way drug companies market themselves to the physicians, and then how and why they started marketing to consumers. I don't know how many of you have sat in doctor's offices waiting for your appointments and have been frustrated when drug company representatives come in to visit the doctor while you wait. Perhaps this has happened to you. I have been amazed as to why going in for something simple you can walk out with several perscriptions. Greg Critser suggests that it is through marketing and giving incentives to physicians this happens. As physicians write more and more perscriptions they are gifted by the drug companies. Once they realized how great that marketing technique worked, we started to see ads directed at consumers. In their marketing, they have often suggested that some drugs work on symptions that the drug did not intend to treat initially; for example, Paxil for shyness, Prozac for PMS. Doctors can legally perscribe a drug for any reason they want to. Meaning marketing in this way, the drug isn't tested properly, and is being given to patients to test out the drug. In recent years we have had problems is Phen-Phen, and Viaox. This book is heavily slanted against the drug companies. The book does cast them as a villian, no doubt. What I liked was that it made you think. Perhaps with some knowledge of how the drug business works, a consumer can go in and ask if the drug was specifically developed for what the intent of treatment is. You might even want to learn to ask about alternative and less expensive treatment. It was good, but very biased read.

Clearly, this is a book worthy of the acclaim the author recieved for his previous work. In this critical account(well-researched, but starting with a very biased opinion to begin with) Crister takes a look at how "Big Pharma" has evolved and changed everyone's lives. The early parts of the book focusses on the evolution of the trade group associated with the drug companies, their motivation and objectives, the personalities involved in its growth, and the inter-play with the politicians and regulatory agencies. Much of that discussion is based on the patent laws and their impacts on the drug companies and the patients. Essentially, the author states a bold premise at the outset of the book - the prescription medication habits of patients is centered around "polymedication" (using multiple medicines to treat the same condition) and overmedication and that it is the fault of the drug companies for creating that scenario. While the observations in the book are perhaps accurate and convincing, it certainly does provide a skewed picture of the operations of the drug companies (no one can dispute the fact that they are for-profit companies trying to increase shareholder value). Whether you agree with the author's premise or not, the book systematically explains his rationale for his premise, interspersed with some interesting anecdotes regarding advertising, direct-to-consumer marketing, politics, and personalities. A good (albiet, slightly biased) look at the operations of Big Pharma. At the very least, one can gather excellent information on the politics and marketing mechanisms of Big Pharma and their interactions with the regulatory agencies. A must read for anyone who is a patient (or "consumer" of drug companies!) or an investor in Big Pharma.