‘Bad Science’ hilariously exposed the tricks that quacks and journalists use to distort science, becoming a 400,000 copy bestseller. Now Ben Goldacre puts the $600bn global pharmaceutical industry under the microscope. What he reveals is a fascinating, terrifying mess.
Doctors and patients need good scientific evidence to make informed decisions. But instead, companies run bad trials on their own drugs, which distort and exaggerate the benefits by design. When these trials produce unflattering results, the data is simply buried. All of this is perfectly legal. In fact, even government regulators withhold vitally important data from the people who need it most. Doctors and patient groups have stood by too, and failed to protect us. Instead, they take money and favours, in a world so fractured that medics and nurses are now educated by the drugs industry.
Patients are harmed in huge numbers.
Ben Goldacre is Britain’s finest writer on the science behind medicine, and ‘Bad Pharma’ is a clear and witty attack, showing exactly how the science has been distorted, how our systems have been broken, and how easy it would be to fix them.
Reviews
From the reviews of Bad Science:
‘From an expert with a mail-order PhD to debunking the myths of homeopathy, Ben Goldacre talks the reader through some notable cases and shows how you don’t need a science degree to spot “bad science” yourself’ Independent (Book of the Year)
‘His book aims to teach us better, in the hope that one day we write less nonsense’ Daily Telegraph (Book of the Year)
‘For sheer savagery, the illusion-destroying, joyous attack on the self-regarding, know-nothing orthodoxies of the modern middle classes, “Bad Science” cannot be beaten. You’ll laugh your head off, then throw all those expensive health foods in the bin’ Trevor Phillips, Observer (Book of the Year)
‘Unmissable…laying about himself in a froth of entirely justified indignation, Goldacre slams the mountebanks and bullshitters who misuse science. Few escape: drug companies, self-styled nutritionists, deluded researchers and journalists all get thoroughly duffed up. It is enormously enjoyable’ The TImes (Book of the Year)
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Bad-Pharma-companies-mislead-patients/dp/0007350740
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