Hooked: How Medicine's Dependence on the Pharmaceutical Industry Undermines Professional Ethics

by Howard Brody

Overview

For decades, medical professionals have betrayed the public's trust by accepting various benefits from the pharmaceutical industry. Both drug company representatives and doctors employ artful spin to portray this behavior positively to the public, and to themselves. In Hooked, Howard Brody argues that we can neither understand the problem, nor propose helpful solutions until we identify the many levels of activity connecting these purportedly noble industries. We can pass laws and enact regulations, but ultimately the medical profession must take responsibility for its own integrity. Hooked is a wake-up call for anyone expecting high quality, ethical medical care.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780742552180
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	12/01/2006
Series:	Explorations in Bioethics and the Medical Humanities
Pages:	382
Product dimensions:	6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x 0.88(d)

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 Introduction: The Tipping Point
Part 2 I. Overview
Chapter 3 1. The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: A Story of Two Medications
Chapter 4 2. An Ethical Framework
Part 5 II. Specific Issues and Problems
Chapter 6 3. The Pharmaceutical Industry and the Free Market
Chapter 7 4. Patents, Generic Drugs, and Academic Science
Chapter 8 5. Research and Profits
Chapter 9 6. Suppression of Research Data
Chapter 10 7. The Quality of Pharmaceutical Research
Chapter 11 8. The Drug Rep: Historical Background
Chapter 12 9. The Drug Rep Today
Chapter 13 10. The Influence of Drug Reps: What the Data Show
Chapter 14 11. Continuing Medical Education
Chapter 15 12. Professional Organizations and Journal Advertising
Chapter 16 13. The Industry and the Consumer
Chapter 17 14. The FDA: From Patent Medicine to AIDS Drugs
Chapter 18 15. The FDA and the Industry, 1990-2004
Part 19 III. Toward Solutions
Chapter 20 16. Solutions: The Management and Divestment Strategies
Chapter 21 17. Solutions Requiring Enhanced Professionalism in Medicine
Chapter 22 18. Solutions Requiring Regulatory Reform
Chapter 23 Epilogue: Industry Woes and Professional Opportunities

Editorial Reviews

It seems that no stone is left unturned in this 367-page book, which can feel at times overwhelming but is without a doubt, thorough.

Health Affairs

[Brody] aims for the measured cadences of the ethicist. .. calmly laying out the relevant facts and then reasoning from basic principles to determine whether the medicine-pharmaceutical relationship, as it stands now, is an ethical one or not. That Dr. Brody manages to deliver a hundred-odd pages of determinedly objective analysis before he, too, lets the righteous indignation roll should not really be called a failure of methodology: even as he carefully lays out the facts in this impressively comprehensive book, those facts begin to speak damningly for themselves. .. for a detailed overview of this very jagged terrain, if not for a map of the pathway out, a better general guide than this one is hard to imagine.

The New York Times

The densely written book captures one's attention and reads like a nonfiction thriller....I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to gain a thorough understanding of the relationship between the pharmaceutical industry and the medical profession. This knowledge provides a platform for the development of rational solutions, which are sorely needed.

JAMA: The Journal of the American Medical Association

An extremely timely book, recommended.

Pediatric Endocrinology Reviews

I highly acclaim and recommend this book to all physicians, medical students, and those in policy-making positions regarding our broken health-care system...It ought to be required reading for the medical profession as a whole and a call to action to help us regain the public's trust in our integrity, altruism, and professional ethics.

Explore: The Journal of Science and Healing

We still have too many doctors and patients who may be aware of some of the deviances of the pharmaceutical industry, however, consider these to be exceptional and of marginal importance. In fact, if someone reads Brody's book, they will learn that fraud, malpractice, and lying is an inbuilt phenomenon in the system of clinical research, drug regulation, scientific publication, medical training and drug advertisements. What Brody adds to our present knowledge is a systematic collection of recommendations for changing the present malfunctioning status quo. It is good to read Brody's book, and it is good to have his reflections in our minds.

Metapsychology Online - Imre Szebik

Physicians, policy makers, and the public should thank Dr. Brody for this major contribution to our understanding of the medical profession and the corrupting influence on the profession of its complex relationship with the pharmaceutical industry.

Philip R. Lee

Dr. Howard Brody has written a powerful book that is relevant to all out practices and questions the relationship between medicine and the pharmaceutical industry.

The Journal Of Nuclear Medicine

In this extraordinary book, Dr. Howard Brody, a medical ethicist, lays out in great detail what he judges to be Big Pharma's misdeeds and the seduction of U.S. docs. His targets are the influence of company drug reps, the suppression of negative research data, the abuse of patents, phony advertising and weak oversight by the FDA.

Chicago Tribune

The single best, most balanced, most comprehensive guide to the current difficulties with the pharmaceutical industry that I have ever read.

Carl Elliott

This book is useful for any medical student or resident who, like me, finds the practice of distributing free pens and lunches a nice perk but an ineffective marketing strategy. Hooked is surely worthwhile for the academic physician-investigator who struggles to win grants, or for the rural practitioner.

Anesthesia and Analgesia

Hooked is a detailed analysis of the relationship between the medical profession and the pharmaceutical industry primarily in the United States. Hooked is well researched and well written. Brody's style is fluent, helping make his arguments persuasive.

Journal of Value Inquiry - Thomas Harter

This book is useful for any medical student or resident who, like me, finds the practice of distributing free pens and lunches a nice perk but an ineffective marketing strategy. Hooked is surely worthwhile for the academic physician-investigator who struggles to win grants, or for the rural practitioner.

September 2008 Anesthesia and Analgesia

The densely written book captures one's attention and reads like a nonfiction thriller....I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to gain a thorough understanding of the relationship between the pharmaceutical industry and the medical profession. This knowledge provides a platform for the development of rational solutions, which are sorely needed.

(Jama) JAMA: The Journal of the American Medical Association

An extremely timely book, recommended.

(Per) Pediatric Endocrinology Reviews

It seems that no stone is left unturned in this 367-page book, which can feel at times overwhelming but is without a doubt, thorough.

September 2008 Health Affairs

I highly acclaim and recommend this book to all physicians, medical students, and those in policy-making positions regarding our broken health-care system...It ought to be required reading for the medical profession as a whole and a call to action to help us regain the public's trust in our integrity, altruism, and professional ethics.

Explore: The Journal of Science and Healing

In this extraordinary book, Dr. Howard Brody, a medical ethicist, lays out in great detail what he judges to be Big Pharma's misdeeds and the seduction of U.S. docs. His targets are the influence of company drug reps, the suppression of negative research data, the abuse of patents, phony advertising and weak oversight by the FDA.

Chicago Tribune

[Brody] aims for the measured cadences of the ethicist . . . calmly laying out the relevant facts and then reasoning from basic principles to determine whether the medicine-pharmaceutical relationship, as it stands now, is an ethical one or not. That Dr. Brody manages to deliver a hundred-odd pages of determinedly objective analysis before he, too, lets the righteous indignation roll should not really be called a failure of methodology: even as he carefully lays out the facts in this impressively comprehensive book, those facts begin to speak damningly for themselves . . . for a detailed overview of this very jagged terrain, if not for a map of the pathway out, a better general guide than this one is hard to imagine.

The New York Times

In this extraordinary book, Dr. Howard Brody, a medical ethicist, lays out in great detail what he judges to be Big Pharma's misdeeds and the seduction of U.S. docs. His targets are the influence of company drug reps, the suppression of negative research data, the abuse of patents, phony advertising and weak oversight by the FDA.

Chicago Tribune Magazine

Hooked is a detailed analysis of the relationship between the medical profession and the pharmaceutical industry primarily in the United States. Hooked is well researched and well written. Brody's style is fluent, helping make his arguments persuasive.
— Thomas Harter, 2009

Journal of Value Inquiry

Hooked is a detailed analysis of the relationship between the medical profession and the pharmaceutical industry primarily in the United States. Hooked is well researched and well written. Brody's style is fluent, helping make his arguments persuasive.
— Thomas Harter, 2009

Journal Of Value Inquiry