Over Dose: The Case Against the Drug Companies: Prescription Drugs, Side Effects, and Your Health

I began working in pharmacy in the late 1960's. I helped dispense drugs at a retail drugstore in my home town and I did the same in the largest hospital in Chicago. I kept it up at another hospital and then started "doing" it on my own when I opened my retail store in 1983. I read the manufacturers' package inserts and I followed the prescriptions as they were ordered - and I noticed that many people had problems with the "recommended" dose. Sometimes they got used to the dose and sometimes it had to be changed. In any event, the recommended dose was not always accurate accurate - it was often dangerously WRONG.I don't know what I thought about all the problems with prescription drugs. I guess I just presumed the patients were overly sensitive, or just unlucky. I didn't often think too much about it - until I became aware of Dr. Jay Cohen and his "Case Against the Drug Companies." His shocking book is called "OVER DOSE" and it describes in good detail the dangers of relying on the manufacturers' package inserts to prescribe drugs.This is an "eye opener" book and it angers me. How is it that we have this overriding desire to place the bottom line above decent care for health? There are some great things happening in medicine - all around the world. But I think that all the good can be quickly undone by hanging on to a misguided philosophy that insists that profits trump everything else. Its time for a change and Dr. Cohen is part of the changing process. I promise to do my part for change. One thing is to expose potential problems (like Dr. Cohen has done) and another is to encourage people to think about the issues (that's my goal). Please get a copy of this book. Read it and then think about what it really means. When we reach a critical mass changes will happen. You can bank on it! (pun intended)

Finally, someone has put into print an accurate and factual picture of what the drug manufacturing industry does to place profits way ahead of patient benefit and safety. Anyone who takes prescription medications should read this book. Maybe it gets a little too technical in spots for people not in the health professions, but there is plenty of excellent information and suggestions to make this a very valuable reference for consumer-oriented patients. I am a doctoral-level clinical pharmacist, and I found myself in agreement with most all of what Dr. Cohen has written and recommended in this book. This should be required reading for every practicing physician, medical student, pharmacist, and nurse in the country. Medical schools should add this to their curriculum for all of our doctors-to-be to read before they take their pharmacology course and start their clinical training.

...I was intrigued by Dr. Cohen's basic premise. The drug industry tries to make drug dosing easy for doctors, but what about the patient? The one size fits all.. dosing is not consumer centric, and in the new age of the informed drug consumer it is about time consumers got their correct dose. Dr. Cohen is... pro-drug treatment for many conditions. He wants to have drug makers offer information and pill sizes for lower dose use. Why should a 250 pound man and 100 pound grandmother get the same starting dose. Yet that is what pharmaceutical companies do in their starting dose recommended. This leads to greater side effects and reduces the use of medicines, says Dr.Cohen. Well-written and easy to understanfd Dr. Cohen raises new opportunities for consumer centric companies interested in making drugs that can be used with less side effects. With poor patient retention and compliance by patients drug companies should be doing what they can to make drug treatment more palatable. Clearly, reducing the over dosing is one way to get greater compliance.

Over Dose is a must read for anyone who uses either prescription or over-the-counter medications. Dr. Cohen's clear explanations about adverse effects resulting from the standardized high doses generally prescribed, and what to do about this, could save your life or that of a loved one. And Over Dose might shed light on why you or people you know suffer from certain health problems.Actually, I found this rigorously researched book quite disturbing. It exposes deeply entrenched and shocking problems related to pharmaceuticals that pervade not only the health care system, but also clinical research. However, it also suggests solutions.We desperately need a dose of reality -- even if it leaves a bitter aftertaste. Good medicine doesn't always taste sweet.I say BRAVO to Dr. Cohen for the courage to publish this important work!

This book should be required reading for every practicing physician as well as for everyone who takes medicine. After reading this book, a major regret is that it was not available to me when I was first starting out in practice.It shames me to think how completely brainwashed I was by the drug companies. And I was not alone. All doctors in my acquaintenance seemed to share my misguided reverence for drug company marketing ploys. The essence of Doctor Cohen's message in this book is that we are all different in our reactions to drugs and the one size fits all mentality used for convenience by the drug industry inevitably results in underdosing some and overdosing others, frequently with serious or even lethal side effects. Start low, go slow is the author's message to doctors and I heartily endorse it.