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Beware of the Risks & Costs of Prescription DrugsSelected Publications on issues in global, societal, institutional, and organizational bioethics (80.5KB)
Selected Publications on issues in global, societal, institutional, and organizational bioethics THE RISKS OF PRESCRIPTION DRUGS ($15, Columbia University Press) has short chapters for general readers and students about how drugs have become a leading cause of death, disorders, accidents, and hospitalizations.
Edited and co-authored by Donald Light, The Risks of Prescription Drugs describes how most drugs approved by regulators provide few if any advantages over existing drugs to offset their risks of side effects. Women, vulnerable elders, and people with disabilities are most affected. The book identifies the Risk Proliferation Syndrome, a set of institutional practices that maximizes the number of people exposed to drugs of little benefit but substantial risks. Health policy experts Howard Brody, Peter Conrad, Allan Horwitz, Donald Light, and Cheryl Stults describe the medicalization of heart disease, sadness and anxiety, and women's natural lives, in order to sell drugs that have little benefit but cost billions and cause side effects. A concluding chapter on health policy recommends how rules and incentives can be changed to make drugs safer. More than 45 million Americans (1 in 6) experience an adverse drug reactions, and they are the 4th leading cause of death. Taxpayers and policy holders pay billions for treating these harms, as well as billions for the drugs themselves. Most side effects are mild but can impair judgment, mood, or coordination. Falls, accidents, and other kinds of injury may result. About 1 in 5 new drugs causes enough harm to receive a warning or be withdrawn in the first decade of use. See key articles in yellow in right-hand column. Click to download Kindle on Amazon Paperback $15.00 167 pages ISBN: 9780-231-14693-7 Hardcover $46.00 e-book ISBN: 9780231519267 ____________________ FOR INSTRUCTORS Use THE RISKS OF PRESCRIPTION DRUGS as a short supplement to courses in public health, epidemiology, health and aging, gender, disability, medical sociology, and minority studies. For an examination copy for course adoptions, go to http://www.cup.columbia.edu/static/examdesk. To request a review copy, write mh2306@columbia.edu +++++ Donald Light is a professor of comparative health care at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, School of Osteopathic Medicine. He is an economic and organizational sociologist who compares health care systems and analyzes health care policies. He has written about the history and dynamics of health care markets and health care insurance, countervailing powers, the medical profession, immigrants and health care, and global justice. As a founding fellow of the Center for Bioethics, he is concerned about the high prices of medicines and barriers to their access. His research aims to provide a demythologized, more realistic account of costs, relative effectiveness and harms, and innovation than is promoted by commercial interests and sponsored academics. He is concerned that current incentives, laws, and regulations encourage companies to develop many new drugs with few advantages, rather than focusing on really superior new drugs. In the long run, this does not serve the major companies well, because they become less innovative and focus on marketing and government protections of high prices. Small biotechs really try to discover breakthrough drugs, but the major companies are too protected and subsidized for their own good. Adam Smith would not approve. |
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