[e-drug] Books on Pills

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E-DRUG:Books on Pills
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The Body Hunters: testing new drugs on the world's poorest patients by Sonia Shah was written in an easy flowing, reader-friendly and non-technical language, this is surely a book e-druggers and consumer groups should be interested in.

The Body Hunters
The New Press 2006
978-1-56584-912-9

Sonia Shah, an independent investigative journalist in her book; The Body Hunters: testing new drugs on the world's poorest patients exposes unethical practices in drug development particularly in the resource-limited countries. Sonia Shah did extensive research and lots of traveling before producing this well written book. Her accounts of clinical trials on ARVs, unproven Trovofloxacin in 1996 meningococcal meningitis outbreak in Nigeria and activated Drotrecogin alfa for severe sepsis was particularly spectacular.

Sonia's work adds to increase interest in this subject area which also includes others like:

On the Take: How Medicine's Complicity with Big Business Can Endanger Your Health by Jerome P. Kassirer

Overdosed America: The Broken Promise of American Medicine by John Abramson

Selling Sickness: How the World's Biggest Pharmaceutical Companies Are
Turning Us All into Patients by Ray Moynihan

The $800 Million Pill: The Truth behind the Cost of New Drugs by Merrill Goozner

Critical books on BigPharma's R&D ethical practices, pricing and safety of patented medicines include John Le Carre's thriller the Constant Gardner, great expositions like Marcia Angell's The Truth About the Drug Companies: How They Deceive Us and What to Do About It;
Jerry Avorn's Powerful Medicines: The Benefits, Risks, and Costs of Prescription Drugs;
Trent Stevens chronicling of Thalidomide "a drug in search of a disease" in his Dark Remedy has a new equally exciting member added to it.

Jude Nwokike (MSc, MPH)
"Nwokike,Jude" <jnwokike@msh.org>

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Jude,

Here is another new book to add to your list that I think is one of the best of the recent harvest:

Howard Brody. Hooked: Ethics, the Medical Profession and the Pharmaceutical Industry. Rowman & Lanham: Littlefield 2007

However don't forget the classics:

Virginia Beardshaw. Prescription for Change. The Hague: IOCU 1983

John Braithwaite. Corporate crime in the pharmaceutical industry. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul 1984

Arthur Hailey. Strong Medicine. London: Pan 1984 (Fiction but perhaps the most accurate insight into the inner workings
of drug companies of all the books.)

Charles Medawar. Power and dependence: Social Audit on the safety of medicines. 1992

regards,

Peter

Dr Peter Mansfield
GP
Director, Healthy Skepticism Inc
Countering misleading drug promotion.
www.healthyskepticism.org
Receive free Healthy Skepticism Updates about once a month: www.healthyskepticism.org/lists/?p=subscribe
Research Fellow, Discipline of General Practice, University of Adelaide
peter.mansfield@adelaide.edu.au

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[Thank you Jude for starting this thread. Dr Mira Shiva has added some more and the moderator could not restrain herself - see below. More contributions would be welcome and we will have developed a nice bibliography. BS]

Dear Peter ,

So good to hear about the books on Drugs that mattered to us. You have triggered some of my grey cells & memory cells into action .

I would like to add to your list of books that made a lot of difference to those of us engaged in Rational Drug Movement since late 1970's
  
Bitter Pills by Diana Melrose

Prescription for Death by Dr Milton Silverman

Inside Ciba Geigy Dr Olle Hansson
   (Incidently 24th May is commemorated by the Drug activists in India as Dr Olle Hansson Day -hazardous Drugs Day, this year we are planning to focus on Hazardous Action by NOVARTIS in the GLIVIC Case in INDIA )
  
Adam's vs Roche by Stanly Adams

There is gold in them thar pills Allan Klass
  
Insult or Injury Charles Medawar.
   
  These books left such deep impact & influenced the nature of work of many .
  They were more than books . People who wrote them were more than authors .
  With regards
   
       Dr Mira Shiva
   All Idia Drug Action Network
  Initiative for Health , Equity & Society
    A 60 Hauz Khas
       New Delhi
         110016
Mira Shiva <mirashiva@yahoo.com>

[Thank you Mira. As you say people who wrote them were more than authors and on th moderator's shelf also

The Great Health Robbery by Dianna Melrose, Oxfam 1981
The Health of Nations by Mike Muller, Faber and FAber, 1982
Drug Diplomacy by Charles Medawar and Barbara Freese, Social Audit 1982
Drugs and World Health by Charles Medawar, Social Audit 1984
Adverse Effects - Women and the Pharmaceutical Industry ed. Kathleen McConnell, International Organisation of Consumer Unions, 1986
A Healthy Business? World Health and the Pharmaceutical Industry by Andrew Chetley, 1990, Zed Books

and more recently and very important
Kanji N, Hardon A, Mamdani M, Walt G. 1992. Drugs policy in developing countries. London: Zed Books.

Chowdhury Z. 1995. The politics of essential drugs. The makings of a successful health strategy: lessons from Bangladesh. London: Zed Books/Dag Hammarskjold Foundation.

Beverley Snell, Moderator]