Deadly Medicine: Why Tens of Thousands of Heart Patients Died in America's Worst Drug Disaster (Hardcover)

by Thomas Moore (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
Reveals the research reports that cited unusual patient deaths that occurred while testing the heart drug Tambocor and traces how the unsafe drug, and several like it, were released anyway, resulting in the deaths of thousands. 60,000 first printing.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster (March 1, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0684804174
• ISBN-13: 978-0684804170
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.4 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #741,375 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Important piece of the jigsaw showing unscientific medicine, December 21, 1997

By	[e-mail] (Sydney, Australia) - See all my reviews

Ralph Moss wrote an excellent review of this book in the Spring 1997 edition of the Cancer Chronicles. I am writing only to put his review into context. There have been many books written describing the shortcomings of medicine, particularly those questioning claims of the efficacy of medical intervention. These include Robert Mendelsohn's Confessions of A Medical Heretic; Richard Taylor's Medicine out of Control; Ivan Illich's Medical Nemesis; the New Medical Foundation's Dissent in Medicine; Samuel Epstein's The Politics of Cancer; Ralph Moss' Cancer Industry and Questioning Chemotherapy; Ulrich Abel's Chemotherapy of advanced epithelial cancer - a critical survey; What Doctors Don't Tell You's Cancer Handbook, What's Really Working; and Neville Hodgkinson's AIDS, the failure of scientific medicine. (I have also published two papers questioning the efficacy of surgical treatment of cancer in Medical Hypotheses.) These together support and explain the claim in the editorial in the British Medical Journal of October 1991 (Vol 303: 198-99) "Where is the wisdom...? The poverty of medical evidence" that "Only about 15% of medical interventions are supported by solid evidence... This is partly because only 1% of the articles in medical journals are scientifically sound". Thomas Moore's earlier (1989) book Heart Failure describes the poor record of treating heart problems with bypass surgery, balloon angioplasty and drugs to lower serum cholesterol. Moore's more recent book homes in on particular drugs such as those used to treat arrhythmia. With deaths from heart disease accounting for more than 40% of all deaths these two books on the inefficacy of treatments for heart problems fill an important gap. As a scientist I found the section explaining how "surrogate endpoints" are used instead of actual therapeutic benefits to test efficacy particularly useful. It explains why so many claims for the efficacy of chemotherapy are invalid. It is a pity that the book is now out of print.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A must read on drug effectiveness and commercialization, August 15, 2000

By	Andrew J Brunskill "jaberwok" (Edmonds, WA United States) - See all my reviews

This is an excellent account of the effects of allowing marketing of Tamnbocor (flecainide) as an anti-arrhythmic based on "surrogate" intermediate endpoints. Later there was recognition that in fact the drug was associated with increased cardiac death rates when a "gold standard" randomized controlled trial was undertaken. It also shows the problematic relationships between the payment and support of academic researchers into drug effectiveness and the drug firms, many of whose products have been life saving and life transforming. A very well balanced book and very enjoyable reading. The author erroneously describes RA Fisher as an American Genius which would irritate the very English (& later Australian) Cambridge professor of Genetics!

9 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Unbelievable but TRUE story how prescription drugs kill!, July 6, 1999

By	Dr. G.F.Gordon ([e-mail]) (Payson Arizona) - See all my reviews

This important investigative work explains HOW and WHY the American Pharmaceutical Industry KILLS and no one seems seriously interested in stopping it, least of all the FDA! Legally prescribed drugs are now the 4th LEADING cause of death in the US. We are trying to change this by helping to train physicians and the public to use natural approaches instead of drugs, inspite of the continous FDA and FTC harrassment of all doctors in Alternative Medicine. Our system that financially rewards doctors millions of dollars for KILLING people is seriously out of control. If natural therapies are even alleged to have slightly harmed even 1 patient, the FDA stands ready to seize ALL of the supplies and put everyone involved in jail. Yet drugs are provably killing over 100,000 each year and the GAME goes on. I believe this book could help everyone understand that this must all change and soon. This book merely describes the tip of the iceberg and the 70,000 dead from these heart medicines described in detail here, is just a fraction of the real number needlessly killed by American medicine and surgery everyday at great taxpayor expense. WE have safe and EFFECTIVE alternatives to virtually every drug, including aspirin (not tylenol!) and most heart surgery is done on the WRONG plaque and does not significantly reduce the likelihood of a heart attack. There are SAFE natural alternatives not just for heart disease but for virtually every one of the major diseases today! contact G.F. Gordon M.D.D.O. President Gordonresearch.com and InCALM.com 1-520-472-9086 Payson AZ