Our Daily Meds: How the Pharmaceutical Companies Transformed Themselves into Slick Marketing Machines and Hooked the Nation on Prescription Drugs

By Melody Petersen

Book Overview

In the last thirty years, the big pharmaceutical companies have transformed themselves into marketing machines selling dangerous medicines as if they were Coca-Cola or Cadillacs. They pitch drugs with video games and soft cuddly toys for children; promote them in churches and subways, at NASCAR races and state fairs. They've become experts at promoting fear of disease, just so they can sell us hope. No question: drugs can save lives. But the relentless marketing that has enriched corporate executives and sent stock prices soaring has come with a dark side. Prescription pills taken as directed by physicians are estimated to kill one American every five minutes. And that figure doesn't reflect the damage done as the overmedicated take to the roads. Our Daily Meds connects the dots for the first time to show how corporate salesmanship has triumphed over science inside the biggest pharmaceutical companies and, in turn, how this promotion driven industry has taken over the practice of medicine and is changing American life. It is an ageless story of the battle between good and evil, with potentially life-changing consequences for everyone, not just the 65 percent of Americans who unscrew a prescription cap every day. An industry with the promise to help so many is now leaving a legacy of needless harm.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0374228272
• ISBN13: 9780374228279
• Release Date: March 2008
• Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
• Length: 448 Pages
• Weight: 1.55 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 1.4" x 6.0"

Customer Reviews

A fascinating read

Great writing style making it a hard book to put down. Every medical provider should read this book. As a provider for 15 years I have seen the tactics, I have watched drugs come in as samples and being promoted as some the best thing next to sliced cheese. I went to the dinners where "scientific information" was presented and thought that I wasn't smart enough to understand exactly why the drug was better(frequently, these same drugs were pulled from market). I have seen meds like neurontin being added to my patient med lists for a variety of reasons. Hmm I would think, I just don't read enough. Well, I will continue my wait and see attitude about new drugs. Something that sounds too good to be true....probably is.

Our Daily Meds

This Book should be read by all people who take medications as a daily routine. It tells how people are prescribed the drugs "de jour" for little or no real reason and how these drugs can be extremely harmful particularly when taken with other drugs. I have read most of this in various publications but in this book it is all brought together. This book shows that the pharmautical industry is primarily profit motivated and curing a person is very secondary.

Where are all the acolades (and reviews) for this brilliant book?

After just finishing this book - as good a piece of investigative journalism as they come - I'm as shocked by the lack of reviews here as I am by seeing the ugly revelation of the "man behind the curtains" true face of Big Pharma. Petersen has chosen an enormous subject, the debased fall and ugly spectacle of medical scientists and researchers, the entire pharmaceutical industry, and yes, most if not all of our physicians failing in their duties to their patients in order to grab another hundred bucks or so in bribes. I was shocked, angry, enraged and finally repelled by what I read, in that order, but was also grateful to Petersen's compulsively easy-to-read style that allowed me to truly understand what I was reading. Between this expose, and Gary Taubes' clear and concise outline (in Good Calories, Bad Calories) of how the public has been mislead and lied to about cholesterol, our diets, heart disease and statins - I'm ready to throw 'the book' at the entire complex, hold Senate Hearings, throw people in jail, and start medicine from scratch. Which might not be such a bad idea, because after reading this book I encourage everyone to begin their next annual physical with the words: "And whose payroll are *you* on?" I recommend this book, and Taubes' book, as REQUIRED READING for anyone who is breathing at the moment - and would like to continue doing so.

Accurate and Shocking

I lived with a neurologist for 4 years during which time he switched from being a 'consultant' for as many pharmas as he could to being a top VP at a very large pharma in NJ. I have seen all the dinners, the off label discussions, the trips to the virgin island and so on. Your book may shock readers, but its content is very accurate. Thank you for putting the truth out there. I was shocked when I learned what was going on and have since had a very bad view of the pharma industry. I will recommend your book to as many people as I can, especially people with young children who could be taking all these mood altering drugs.

Superb & Overdue

This is a superb and overdue look at the lethal cocktails Americans, and especially elderly Americans, have been manipulated into downing morning and night. Makes you wish the entire country could go into detox and perhaps find out, at last, what's actually ailing each of us. A large part of what's ailing us now is due to the colliding drugs we are prescribed by doctors in the thrall of the drug companies, for patients in the thrall of their doctors.