Sickening: How Big Pharma Broke American Health Care and How

This is a hard-hitting book that builds momentum as it goes (I’m halfway through). The chapter on the history of clinical trials is masterful. Abramson has an unparalleled command of this material. At times it is too dense with information and becomes a little bumpy to read, but the details are important.I heard Abramson say on Liz Tucker’s podcast (What Your GP Isn’t Telling You) that the incursion of commercial forces into medicine is a crisis. He is absolutely correct, and this book lays out the evidence. Everyone in Congress should read it, as well as physicians and public health researchers. Inquiring people should read it to understand better what is behind the curtain in medical care.P.S. There are a few other good books in the same vein, but a unique strength of ‘Sickening’ is the attention to costs of drugs and health care for individuals. The author also helpfully links health care trends with historical changes since the 1980s.

This book is very helpful in understanding the woeful state of american health care and how it is financed. Our health care works fairly well for those of us in the upper middle class; and indeed American medical science is superb - but just not very acessible for many.

The information in this book is generally great and of utmost importance for people to know. I do have some issues I thought relevant to express in this review.First, let me say the information contained within this book is excellent and well-presented. For people who were unaware of the suffocating, constrictive grasp Big Pharma has over the health care system in this country, this book will open your eyes to a dark world that will make your skin crawl and have you questioning everything you thought you knew about our most trustworthy health care professionals. For those who had some idea of that influence already, this book will show you the depths to which Big Pharma's tentacles reach. It is enough to make you want to scream, but it is information that must be made known to as many people as possible before real change can begin.As I mentioned, I did take issue with several of Dr. Abramson's positions in this book, which I will explore here for anyone interested.At the end of the book, Dr. Abramson mentions he worked on it for over 6 years. I certainly got the impression that he finished the bulk of it by Iate 2020 to mid 2021. The level of unwarranted praise he showers on the vaccine makers for their COVID vaccines (particularly in the Introduction, which is devoted almost entirely to stroking the vaccine companies) is, in my opinion, quite off-putting, especially given the internal documents now coming into the public eye which clearly show these vaccines were not anywhere near as "safe and effective" as the public was led to believe throughout the pandemic. Dr. Abramson also mentions the effectiveness of mask-wearing as a life-saving social measure, which is also infuriatingly and provably false, as studies have continued to show. I just don't understand how Dr. Abramson could spend so long and put so much effort into a project documenting the wanton carelessness and blatant dishonesty that drugmakers have been proven to demonstrate when it comes to developing, marketing, and selling new drugs, yet at the same time praise those same companies for their efforts in rushing COVID vaccines to market, with apparently no inkling that those vaccines may have suffered from the very same lack of effectiveness, hyped-up marketing, and buried dangers of risk and rates of harm as the prescription drugs he details. I would love to see a second edition once the allegations of misrepresented results and the entirety of the research data from the vaccine trials has been brought to light with all new and relevant data on this subject included.It is also quite clear from the text that Dr. Abramson is quite left-leaning in his politics. While I don't necessarily take issue with that fact, I do find it distasteful to make one's political leanings so obvious in a work of nonfiction (though I wholeheartedly agree that Mitch McConnel is a slimy POS). I'm willing to give Dr. Abramson a pass here, as the issues he points out are largely political in nature, and I can understand his frustration.Lastly, I disagree with Dr. Abramson's assessment on the role that "free market" capitalism has played on the cancerous growth of the pharmaceutical industry's revenues and influence, though his arguments are quite compelling and completely understandable. He compares Milton Friedman's notions of government's role in a free market society with what we see today, apparently in an attempt to show how far "free market" capitalism has fallen, but in my opinion succeeds only in demonstrating that what we have today in the pharmaceutical industry (and others) can no longer be considered free market capitalism, particularly as described by Friedman.Overall, this is required reading in my opinion, and I am grateful to Dr. Abramson for his efforts in compiling this work and sharing his experiences in the effort to improve our society as a whole. There is no question we need health care reform from a fundamental level up, and Dr. Abramson shows us exactly why before offering his own suggestions on how. While herculean in scope now, if everyone in this country would read this book, I believe that reform would happen nearly overnight.

The facts he presents about the prescription medications we take assuming that they are the best solution to our issues is scary. The approval process is broken. The training of our trusting doctors is more marketing than fact. Big Pharma has taken control and we are now relying on information that was designed to sell their product, not necessarily in our best interest.

Dr, Abramson addresses issues that most people are unaware of and does it in a compelling and easily digestible manner. It's very informative and the objective portions of the book are on point. I recommend everyone with an interest in healthcare or public health read it. However, I would keep an open mind as some of Dr. Abramson's conclusions take some liberty and display his personal bias. I think the 1st 1/2 to 3/4 of the book are almost completely objective, but as the book goes on it's more opinion without acknowledging counterpoints or other contributing factors. Read this book, yes, but don't stop there. There's a whole lot more down the rabbit hole.