| Selling Sickness: How the World's Biggest Pharmaceutical Companies Are Turning Us All Into Patients Contributor(s): Moynihan, Ray (Author), Cassels, Alan (Author) |
|
 |
ISBN: 156025856X ISBN-13: 9781560258568 Publisher: Bold Type Books OUR PRICE: $20.89 Product Type: Paperback - Other Formats Published: June 2006 Annotation: Thirty years ago, Henry Gadsden told Fortune that he wanted Merck to be more like chewing gum-maker Wrigley's. It had long been his dream to make drugs for healthy people--to "sell to everyone." Gadsden's dream now drives the marketing machinery of the most profitable industry on earth. Using their dominating influence in the world of medical science, drug companies are systematically working to widen the very boundaries that define illness. Old conditions are expanded and new ones created, and the markets for medication grow ever large. Runny noses are now allergic rhinitis, PMS has become a psychiatric disorder, and hyperactive children have ADD. When it comes to conditions like high cholesterol or low bone density, being "at risk" is sold as a disease in its own right. Selling Sickness reveals how widening the boundaries of illness and lowering the threshold for treatments is creating millions of new patients and billions in new profits. As ordinary life becomes increasingly medicalized, the industry moves ever closer to Gadsden's dream: "selling to everyone." |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Business & Economics | Industries - Manufacturing - Business & Economics | Advertising & Promotion - Medical | Health Care Delivery |
| Dewey: 381.456 |
| LCCN: 2006272734 |
| Physical Information: 0.73" H x 5.35" W x 8.33" (0.61 lbs) 272 pages |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: Thirty years ago, the head of the drug company Merck made some remarkably candid comments about his distress that his company's market was limited to sick people. Suggesting he would like Merck to be more like the maker of Wrigley's chewing gum, the CEO said it had long been his dream to make drugs for healthy people, to sell to everyone. That dream now drives the marketing machinery of the most profitable industry on earth. From award-winning Ray Moynihan, -- one of the world's top medical journalists -- Selling Sickness reveals how widening the boundaries of illness and lowering the threshold for treatments is creating millions of new patients and billions in new profits. This in turn is driving up personal drug bills and threatening to bankrupt national health systems all over the world. As more and more ordinary life is medicalized, the industry moves ever closer to being able to sell to everyone. |
