Overdo$ed America: The Broken Promise of American Medicine

AORN Journal, August, 2006 by Lethia Collins

Overdo$ed America: The Broken Promise of American Medicine John Abramson 2005, 352 pages $13.95 softcover

The subtitle of this book, "How the Pharmaceutical Companies Are Corrupting Science, Misleading Doctors, and Threatening Your Health," sums up its point. The book explains how pharmaceutical companies are pushing medications through the US Food and Drug Administration approval process, aggressively advertising and selling these medications to the public, and getting their sponsored research studies published in well-respected medical journals that physicians trust for accurate information.

Highly respected medical journals, such as The New England Journal of Medicine and JAMA, are publishing research articles with incomplete results on medications that are evaluated in research studies sponsored by pharmaceutical companies. In addition, expert physician reviewers are being paid by pharmaceutical companies for their opinions on such research. Physicians and other health care professionals who rely on accurately published research to keep abreast of current applications of medications are being deceived by incomplete reporting of research studies' final results and by that is misrepresented by the pharmaceutical companies. It is an outright injustice to physicians and patients alike.

This book is a must read for all. The truth is revealed about many familiar medications, including brand-name narcotic pain relievers, nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, and antidepressants. It is clear that pharmaceutical companies are sponsoring most of the clinical research for new medications and educating physicians and the public about these medications. According to the author, it also is the wealthy pharmaceutical companies who are responsible for the rapidly increasing health care costs in our country.

The author, who has been a family practice physician for more than 20 years and is a clinical faculty instructor at Harvard Medical School, Boston, has taken three years to compile this information. His hope in writing this book is that physicians and patients will become aware of the influence that pharmaceutical companies have on the published results of research studies on medications, and how their advertisements may lead the public to believe that "life is not worth living" without these latest and greatest medications.

This book is easy to read and a great reference for both consumers and health care providers. It is written for the general public, with terms defined and complex research jargon simplified. It has enlightened me to take a "reader beware" approach when reviewing research. These days, with information regarding health care and anything else readily available on the Internet, consumers are very well informed. As consumers and health care providers, however, we need references such as this book to help us make informed decisions about caring for the public and ourselves.

This book is available from Harper Perennial, HarperCollins Publishers, Inc, 10 E 53rd St, New York, NY 10022.

LETHIA COLLINS

RN, MSN, CNOR, CFNP

RN FIRST ASSISTANT

FLOYD MEMORIAL HOSPITAL

AND HEALTH SERVICES

NEW ALBANY, IND