"Abramson provides a detailed, accessible cost-benefit analysis of more than a dozen [brand-name drugs] . . . to make a compelling case that drug companies have created a chasm between 'their claimed or implied value and their true value.' . . . His recommendations should command the attention of every American.” — Psychology Today
“The Purdue Pharmaceutical company and its owners, the Sackler Family, have paid out billions of dollars in legal settlements, after deploying sales personnel to mislead physicians into believing that Oxycontin was not an addictive opioid. As John Abramson brilliantly shows in Sickening, the Purdue gang was simply following a script used by drug companies generally, hyping medicines and deceiving physicians about every aspect of their safety and efficacy. It’s a medical horror show.” — Laurie Garrett, winner of the Pulitzer Prize and New York Times bestselling author
“Powerful … Abramson proposes worthy long-term solutions … But this book, the best on prescription drugs since Katherine Eban’s Bottle of Lies, should also have high short-term value for patients, whom it might embolden to question their doctors more aggressively about whether there’s an equally effective substitute for a drug with a sky-high price tag. A blistering, persuasive critique of the harms done when drug companies hide the truth about their drugs.” — Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"Abramson… has compiled multiple patient stories to demonstrate how the pharmaceutical industry’s financial interests have corrupted and diminished the American health care system, costing not only many Americans their entire bank accounts but also, for many, their lives." — Fortune
“Dr. Abramson’s book is a scholarly tour de force that should be read by all prescribers, researchers, publishers of that research, and users of pharmaceutical drugs.” — Catherine DeAngelis, Editor in Chief Emerita, Journal of the American Medical Association
"A crash course in the profit-driven systems built by Big Pharma that dominate the U.S. health care industry and how they can cause undue suffering.... Sickening is written in tempered language backed up by hard data and historical examples to illustrate Big Pharma’s enrichment strategies." — Undark Magazine
"Abramson shines a light on the questionable and unchallenged practices of drug companies that guarantee immense profits at the expense of misleading physicians about drug efficacy." — Library Journal
“Sickening is a must-read for all health professionals and anybody impacted by prescription drugs—that is, all of us. The book rigorously and convincingly documents that Big Pharma is largely responsible for the horrendously expensive yet inferior health care in the United States. To improve Americans’ health, a large proportion of the US population must read the book and incrementally reverse this travesty. When that happens, it will improve the health of the rest of the world as well.”— — James M. Wright, MD, PhD, Emeritus Professor, University of British Columbia
“For nearly 20 years, Dr. Abramson’s lectures have been a staple of the Harvard Medical School’s annual Herbert Benson, MD CME Course in Mind Body Medicine. His perceptive and compassionate analysis of the U.S. health care system’s failings—and possible remedies—consistently receives a standing ovation. With this important book, the general public will be able to share in his insights and help to advance our common mission of making health care work for everyone.” — Peg Baim, MS, NP, Course Co-Director, annual Herbert Benson, MD CME Course in Mind Body Medicine at Harvard Medical School
"Over many years of working with John Abramson in pharmaceutical and device litigation, I witnessed his unique blend of compassion for patients, deep medical knowledge, and unyielding intellectual integrity. He provided invaluable expertise on how manufacturers distort medical science, and he exposed the tactics used by manufacturers to mislead both doctors and the public. Now he brings those skills to this masterful and profound book, which exposes the routine dishonesty at the heart of the American health care crisis." — Clinton Fisher, JD, Simmons Hanly Conroy (retired)
Sickening is a must-read for all health professionals and anybody impacted by prescription drugs—that is, all of us. The book rigorously and convincingly documents that Big Pharma is largely responsible for the horrendously expensive yet inferior health care in the United States. To improve Americans’ health, a large proportion of the US population must read the book and incrementally reverse this travesty. When that happens, it will improve the health of the rest of the world as well.”—
"A crash course in the profit-driven systems built by Big Pharma that dominate the U.S. health care industry and how they can cause undue suffering.... Sickening is written in tempered language backed up by hard data and historical examples to illustrate Big Pharma’s enrichment strategies."
"Over many years of working with John Abramson in pharmaceutical and device litigation, I witnessed his unique blend of compassion for patients, deep medical knowledge, and unyielding intellectual integrity. He provided invaluable expertise on how manufacturers distort medical science, and he exposed the tactics used by manufacturers to mislead both doctors and the public. Now he brings those skills to this masterful and profound book, which exposes the routine dishonesty at the heart of the American health care crisis."
"Abramson provides a detailed, accessible cost-benefit analysis of more than a dozen [brand-name drugs] . . . to make a compelling case that drug companies have created a chasm between 'their claimed or implied value and their true value.' . . . His recommendations should command the attention of every American.
Dr. Abramson’s book is a scholarly tour de force that should be read by all prescribers, researchers, publishers of that research, and users of pharmaceutical drugs.
The Purdue Pharmaceutical company and its owners, the Sackler Family, have paid out billions of dollars in legal settlements, after deploying sales personnel to mislead physicians into believing that Oxycontin was not an addictive opioid. As John Abramson brilliantly shows in Sickening, the Purdue gang was simply following a script used by drug companies generally, hyping medicines and deceiving physicians about every aspect of their safety and efficacy. It’s a medical horror show.
For nearly 20 years, Dr. Abramson’s lectures have been a staple of the Harvard Medical School’s annual Herbert Benson, MD CME Course in Mind Body Medicine. His perceptive and compassionate analysis of the U.S. health care system’s failings—and possible remedies—consistently receives a standing ovation. With this important book, the general public will be able to share in his insights and help to advance our common mission of making health care work for everyone.
Abramson… has compiled multiple patient stories to demonstrate how the pharmaceutical industry’s financial interests have corrupted and diminished the American health care system, costing not only many Americans their entire bank accounts but also, for many, their lives.
01/01/2022
Abramson (Overdosed America) shines a light on the questionable and unchallenged practices of drug companies that guarantee immense profits at the expense of misleading physicians about drug efficacy. The author makes use of his background in pharmaceutical industry research to highlight myriad ways in which both doctors and patients are susceptible to misleading information about drug benefits. Via Abramson's detailed narratives, readers will learn about pharmaceutical industry abuses (e.g., the overprescribing of statins for managing cholesterol; unreasonable prices for insulin, which is cheap to produce) and their negative impacts on patients and health care delivery. Some readers may wish Abramson offered solutions beyond government regulation, but most will be satisfied by his call to work together across industries to provide affordable health care. VERDICT Readers interested in learning about the pharmaceutical industry (plus the ways drugs are introduced to healthcare providers, and the deceptions that get particular drugs into a patient's treatment regimen) may find themselves galvanized by what Abramson reveals.—Rich McIntyre Jr.
★ 2021-12-10
A family physician and Harvard Medical School lecturer exposes the sordid tactics big pharma uses to jack up drug prices and con doctors about the facts they need to provide good care.
Abramson makes a powerful case that, over the past 40 years, profiteering drug companies have played an outsized role in two crises: the soaring costs of health care and America’s plunging “healthy life expectancy,” ranked 68th in the world in 2019. Linking the problem to a corporate shift to chasing profitability untethered from social responsibility, the author shows how corporations have hijacked sources of information doctors once could trust, such as medical journals, educational conferences, and lectures. The corruption began in the 1990s, when drug companies took control of clinical trials from academic medical centers; 6 out of 7 trials are now funded commercially by sponsors who have no obligation to show their data to medical journals. In an especially alarming chapter, Abramson shows how repeated changes in insulin have made it vastly more expensive for people with diabetes with little—if any—benefit. Companies have also withheld or manipulated facts about statins and popular drugs like Trulicity and Humira, which costs $78,000 per year. “Humira became by far the best-selling drug in the United States,” writes the author, “despite the fact that the manufacturer’s own study showed that it was no more effective as a first-line therapy for rheumatoid arthritis than methotrexate, which costs 99.5 percent less than Humira.” Abramson proposes worthy long-term solutions to the crisis, such as transparency about clinical trial results. But this book, the best on prescription drugs since Katherine Eban’s Bottle of Lies (2019), should also have high short-term value for patients, whom it might embolden to question their doctors more aggressively about whether there’s an equally effective substitute for a drug with a sky-high price tag.
A blistering, persuasive critique of the harms done when drug companies hide the truth about their drugs.
