Customer Reviews

Big Pharma: Exposing the Global Healthcare Agenda

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Big Pharma Review - Jacky Law


What's the difference between good journalism and honey? Not a lot. Both run smooth, hit the spot when it comes to taste; and both as they have no bitter aftertaste leave you wanting for nothing but more.

Big Pharma - a revelation of a book - is written with skill and concision. With the right facts supporting the most telling of arguments that just keep on coming. Over 250 pages of paragraph after illuminating paragraph making it a honey of a read. What Jacky Law has to report could have been just an eye-opener for the inside few, but her riveting, forceful and fair-minded telling of it, makes it a true `must-read' for us all.

The author has taken her twenty five years experience of reporting on the planet's pill makers, added some of her own smart investigative insights, to lead us effortlessly, and with great purpose into the heart of this previously hidden industry. The white-coated world of the pharmaceutical giants is revealed in all its grubby majesty.

No doubt about it, the figures - the mighty ever-escalating billions - show us that Big Pharma is one of the most dominant and influential of the corporate kings that this century or any other period has ever known.

Her book is a wakeup call that we ignore at our peril. A dossier of well-researched facts and arguments carefully and clearly presented. Her intention isn't to shock, more to enlighten. But because of the depth of the book's inquiry and the scale of what is uncovered shock it does.

Medicine, as we all know, is quiet literally a matter of life and death. Which one of us isn't a hostage to our health? So we think, or at least I did, that the industry, which supplies the doctors and systems that we so rely on are as ethical as the lifesavers themselves. Maybe not perfect but a working approximation of the Good Guy. If not saints then certainly not sinners. But forget any notion of the Hippocratic oath, money as these pages show doesn't just talk, in Big Pharma it swears.

Drug development is exposed as being little different from any other new product programme. Profitability isn't simply an outcome of success it's prerequisite. The efforts, half lies and chicanery of the multi national are often enough to make a snake oil salesman blush. If a treatment can be left to commonsense or priced up to smack of high science then it's no contest. The end user, the patient, you and I, are no more or less than a market to be maximised.

Of course there have been improvements. Medicine naturally is best as an investment when it works to cure or alleviate. So it's not all smoke and mirrors. The bottom line always looks better when pills are efficient, when drugs deliver. There's no doubt about it, the pharmaceutical giants have changed our expectations and experience of health and sickness.

There has been the introduction of some truly remarkable concoctions and life saving remedies. Breakthrough after breakthrough brings us better and better medicine. But progress in profits has been even more remarkable.

See how much value dealing with the sick and dying can generate. See how tricky, ruthless and rapacious Big Pharma can be. Arm yourself with information. Start making the medicine business accountable to the people it serves not the bank balances it generates.

A chapter a day starting now may not make you feel better, but it will give you a healthier understanding of what's really happening in the big, big world of Pharma.

But be warned it will leave an aftertaste. And it won't be sweet.

Barry Brooks

Here is yet another in a long line of books written to expose the dirty dealings going on between the FDA, and "Big Pharma." Supposed new drugs which are only replications of existing drugs from another company. Because I want to get my feet wet as well, because there is money to be made. Then there are the continual TV, Radio, and Print Media ads which continues to echo in ears and minds of targeted consumers. This Medication or that which do nothing but provide a crutch if you may. Negative side effects played down by both "Big Pharma," and the FDA equally, stating "the benefits far out weigh the risks." Yes of course unless you are one of the victims who happened to become seriously ill, or died.

The co-habitation between the FDA, and "Big Pharma" just to keep "Big Pharma" in business. And let us not forget the attempts at "Tort Reform." This is nonsense yet the Government allows this to continue, and there are millions of victims, and few of us are even speaking up, or asking questions. Note "Autism." Ever ask yourself why the Amish People have no Autism amoung their populus? There is that risk factor again, raising it's ugly head.

Then there is the new push to make the world comply with rules that disallow anyone to speak about "Natural Cures," via WTO. At the same time trying to limit the common citizen's ability to purchase what is commonly known as "Dietary Supplements." You know according to the FDA, "Only a drug, can cure, treat, or prevent a disease." To speak otherwise is to bring the weight of the law down on ones head. If I were to say the cure for scurvy, is citrus fruit, or that cherries are a natural anti-inflammatory agent. Oh well I have just broken the law.

Read this book get an understanding for yourself as to how this ruse cost the American tax payer, and purchasers of Healthcare Insurance needless billions. One of the biggest reasons for healthcare being so costly. That and the prophiteers involved in healthcare.

Corporate wealth and public health often are at odds with one another: that's the view presented in BIG PHARMA: EXPOSING THE GLBOAL HEALTHCARE AGENDA. Modern healthcare is in shambled, and Jacky Law shows how a relatively small number of companies dominate the research agenda and pursue profits to the detriment of public health and health systems as a whole. From the influences of corporate lobbyists to market considerations which rule over medical needs, BIG PHARMA exposes a big headache which needs fixing.

Diane C. Donovan, Editor
California Bookwatch

The overall thrust of the book is good. Much of the information
has been related by Ralph Nader and other interested consumer groups. A strength of the work is that the author centralizes
some well-known problems with the pharmaceutical-based prescription
system which has been embraced almost totally by major medicine.
There are a small minority of practitioners that prescribe
complementary medicine for a plethora of illnesses. The Goldberg
Group has published a treatise on the Alternative Medicinal protocols which employ vitamins, herbs , acupuncture, magnetic
therapy, hyperbaric oxygen and a constellation of pain-relieving
modalities practiced on the fringe of modern day medicine in
the USA. Many of the alternative medicinal modes are described
in the Journal of the Lancet. Ms. Law explains how the drug
companies skew results so that conclusions appear to be favorable
to specific new medicines/processes. In the Placebo effect,
patients are known to possess a great deal of innate healing
power which may or may not relate to any specific medicine
(conventional or otherwise). In addition, Ms. Law explains
how a good delivery system can maximize profits for drug
manufacturers. Drug manufacturers are said to have comfortable
relationships with physicians and patients. Resultingly, drugs
are likely to sell regardless of effectiveness. Ultimately,
companies are faced with a choice between profit maximization
and the public health. The author provides a service to the
public by highlighting some of the most egregious offenses.
Drug manufacturers would argue that companies invest heavily
in the FDA approval process. Therefore, they deserve the profits
which accompany drug approval and public acceptance. On the
other hand, some research is funded with government assistance.
A few drug manufacturers make the product available free of
charge for persons unable to afford medicines. Overall, the
debate on the existing health care delivery system continues
unabated.

Law takes steps to show the reader the "Bigger picture" of the drug companies and thier goals on a global level and the concern that may arise do to thier efforts along the way.