Thirty years ago, Henry Gadsden, the head of Merck, one of the world's largest drug companies, told Fortune magazine that he wanted Merck to be more like chewing gum maker Wrigley's. It had long been his dream to make drugs for healthy people so that Merck could "sell to everyone." Gadsden's dream now drives the marketing machinery of the most profitable industry on earth. Drug companies are systematically working to widen the very boundaries that define illness, and the markets for medication grow ever larger. Mild problems are redefined as serious illness and common complaints are labeled as medical conditions requiring drug treatments. Runny noses are now allergic rhinitis, PMS has become a psychiatric disorder, and hyperactive children have ADD. When it comes to conditions like high cholesterol or low bone density, being "at risk" is sold as a disease. Selling Sickness reveals how widening the boundaries of illness and lowering the threshold for treatments is creating millions of new patients and billions in new profits, in turn threatening to bankrupt health-care systems all over the world. As more and more of ordinary life becomes medicalized, the industry moves ever closer to Gadsden's dream: "selling to everyone."
Author: Ray Moynihan
Author: Alan Cassels
Publisher: Nation Books
Customer Reviews
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Pharmaceutical Drug Cartel Exposed
Selling Sickness is a striking and bare-knuckled expose' about how the multibillion dollar Pharmaceutical Drug Cartel (PDC) exercises arbitrary and Fifth Column influence over the FDA, the NIMH and premiere medical and psychiatric journals and organizations, while shaping the perceptions of the lemming masses.
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<br />Promoters and agents of the multibillion dollar advertising industry hold the rank of Joseph Goebbels in the PDC, using funding for fifth column advertising, research projects and "education" grants to control journals, public agencies and artificial "grassroots" movements, (i.e. "Astroturf.")
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<br />While this phenomena demonstrates that corporate and stockholder interests are not always in the best public interest, it also begs a larger question:
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<br />Can the masses be drugged (as opposed to crushed by military force) into surrendering independent liberty to the Brave New World of a Marxist/Von Mises hybrid similar to that of China?
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WAKE UP AMERICA!
HEALTHY, WELL PEOPLE DO NOT MAKE DOCTORS RICH. THEY DO NOT MAKE DRUG COMPANY "CEO'S" OR "INVESTORS"
<br />RICH EITHER.
<br />GOING TO SEE A DIETITIAN EVEN IF YOU HAVE TO PAY FOR IT "OUT OF POCKET" WOULD BE MONEY WELL SPENT. WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOUR DOCTOR "PRESCRIBED" A DIET?? WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME HE EVEN TALKED ABOUT DIET?? WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME HE EXAMINED YOU??
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<br />WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU GAVE ANY THOUGHT TO WHAT YOU PUT IN YOUR MOUTH?? WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU GOT LIGHT TO MODERATE EXERCISE??
<br />LASTLY, WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU FELT REALLY GOOD?? GET THE BOOK AND READ IT. GET MORE BOOKS LIKE IT AND READ THEM. YOU MIGHT BE A BETTER "DOCTOR" THAN THE ONE YOU ARE SEEING NOW...
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Must read before popping another pill.
A must-read for everyone who is on prescription medications or has a loved one on meds. Especially, if you think the FDA protects consumers.
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A must read
This is an excellent and well written book. If you want to be informed, I suggest you read it. I won't bother restating what others have said. I also notice that physicians here rating the book don't like it as much. I wonder why?
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