James Le Fanu
Bitter Pills to Swallow
Pharmageddon
By David Healy
University of California Press 302pp £27.95
The everyday practice of medicine is much the same as ever – diagnosing what is amiss and, with luck, putting it right. But recent years have witnessed, or so it seems to many, a profound shift in the nature of the ‘clinical encounter’, in favour of doctors staring at their computer screens, filling in protocols, checking everyone’s cholesterol levels and showing an almost indecent enthusiasm for prescribing drugs. So it is that in just fifteen years the number of prescriptions issued by doctors in Britain has increased a staggering threefold. It is now not unusual for those in their seventies and beyond to be taking half a dozen different medications.
The driving force, and substantial beneficiary, of this mass medicalisation is of course the pharmaceutical industry, or Big Pharma as it has pejoratively become known. Its devious methods of marketing its drugs have rightly attracted much criticism. David Healy’s cleverly titled Pharmageddon captures the moral dimensions of what is at
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
Twitter Feed
Are iPhones ruining children's lives? A prominent American psychologist thinks so.
@tiffanyjenkins is not so sure:
Tiffany Jenkins - The Smartphone Pandemic
Tiffany Jenkins: The Smartphone Pandemic - The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an...
literaryreview.co.uk
India's 'festival of democracy', or general election, begins next month. Like every good festival, it looks likely to have its fair share of murders and arrests.
@OwenBennettJon probes the state of democracy in India:
Owen Bennett-Jones - New Delhi Confidential
Owen Bennett-Jones: New Delhi Confidential - The Incarcerations: BK-16 and the Search for Democracy in India by Alpa Shah
literaryreview.co.uk
Where is the world's newest narcostate and why is it thriving?
@AdamBrookesWord investigates Asia's meth mecca.
Adam Brookes - Meth Comes to Myanmar
Adam Brookes: Meth Comes to Myanmar - Narcotopia: In Search of the Asian Drug Cartel That Outwitted the CIA by Patrick Winn
literaryreview.co.uk