Drugs for life [electronic resource] : how pharmaceutical companies define our health / Joseph Dumit.
Dumit, Joseph.
2012
HD9666.5 .D86 2012eb
Available Online

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Title Drugs for life [electronic resource] : how pharmaceutical companies define our health / Joseph Dumit.
Author Dumit, Joseph.
ISBN 9780822393481 (electronic bk.)
0822393484 (electronic bk.)
9780822348603
0822348608
9780822348719 (pbk.)
0822348713 (pbk.)
Publication Details Durham, N.C. : Duke University Press, 2012.
Language English
Description 1 online resource (xii, 262 p. : ill.)
Call Number HD9666.5 .D86 2012eb
Summary Every year the average number of prescriptions purchased by Americans increases, as do healthcare expenditures, which are projected to reach one fifth of the U.S. gross domestic product by 2020. In Drugs for Life, Joseph Dumit considers how our burgeoning consumption of medicine and cost of healthcare not only came to be, but came to be taken for granted. For several years, Dumit attended pharmaceutical industry conferences; spoke with marketers, researchers, doctors, and patients; and surveyed the industry's literature regarding strategies to expand markets for prescription drugs. He concluded that underlying the continual growth in medications, disease categories, costs, and insecurity is a relatively new perception of ourselves as inherently ill and in need of chronic treatment. This perception is based on clinical trials that we have largely outsourced to pharmaceutical companies. Those companies in turn see clinical trials as investments and measure the value of those investments by the size of the market they will create. They only ask questions for which the answer is more medicine. Drugs for Life challenges our understanding of health, risks, facts, and clinical trials, the very concepts used by pharmaceutical companies to grow markets to the point where almost no one can imagine a life without prescription drugs.
Note Every year the average number of prescriptions purchased by Americans increases, as do healthcare expenditures, which are projected to reach one fifth of the U.S. gross domestic product by 2020. In Drugs for Life, Joseph Dumit considers how our burgeoning consumption of medicine and cost of healthcare not only came to be, but came to be taken for granted. For several years, Dumit attended pharmaceutical industry conferences; spoke with marketers, researchers, doctors, and patients; and surveyed the industry's literature regarding strategies to expand markets for prescription drugs. He concluded that underlying the continual growth in medications, disease categories, costs, and insecurity is a relatively new perception of ourselves as inherently ill and in need of chronic treatment. This perception is based on clinical trials that we have largely outsourced to pharmaceutical companies. Those companies in turn see clinical trials as investments and measure the value of those investments by the size of the market they will create. They only ask questions for which the answer is more medicine. Drugs for Life challenges our understanding of health, risks, facts, and clinical trials, the very concepts used by pharmaceutical companies to grow markets to the point where almost no one can imagine a life without prescription drugs.
Bibliography, etc. Note Includes bibliographical references and index.
Access Note Access limited to authorized users.
Source of Description Description based on print version record.
Series Experimental futures.
Available in Other Form Drugs for life.
Linked Resources Online Access
Record Appears in Online Resources > Ebooks
All Resources
Responding to facts
Pharmaceutical witnessing and direct-to-consumer advertising
Having to grow medicine
Mass health : illness is a line you cross
Moving the lines : deciding on thresholds
Knowing your numbers : pharmaceutical lifestyles.

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