Performance Enhancing Drugs Book

A somewhat biased, though informative, view of the pharmaceutical industry over the past 30ish years.

This is actually a pretty good piece of journalism as the author walks through the evolution of pharmaceutical marketing, the industry move to the direct to consumer model, the change in standards at the FDA for speed rather than efficacy, and some of the longterm effects prescription drugs have on the human body. All of these highlight the problems with modern day big pharma.

The only issue with the book is that 95% of it focuses on the harm that drugs and the pharmaceutical industry are causing, and even if there are some big flaws, there are many benefits to modern drugs which the author ignores. The author does realize his bias and offers a bit of a mea culpa in his conclusion by admitting that not all of big pharma is bad and they are not the sole problem. I actually thought the conclusion was one of the better parts of the book because the author went beyond reporting and offered actual solutions to the problems on which he reported, even if many of the solutions are likely unachievable.

Actually, there is one more issue and that is that this book doesn't really have a market. If you're already skeptical of the drug industry, this is just adds more flame to the fire, and if you're not skeptical about the drug industry you probably don't read or only read the bible or some other piece of propaganda from the NRA.

In conclusion, you should be skeptical about prescription drugs and the drug industry, this book is a good journalistic piece about what to be aware of and how we got to where we are, but it does overlook many of the benefits of prescription drugs.


And if you take prescription drugs, i definitely recommend this book.