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0 of 2 found the following review helpful:
Exploiting misery Apr 27, 2009
This is a very well researched investigation into the scamming pharmaceutical world and how shamefully (and with the collusion of the FDA) they exploit suffering to make a buck. I would have liked a little more out of Iowa references; nevertheless, I suppose it's the same throughout the entire nation. Single payer health care, anyone?
2 of 2 found the following review helpful:
 I was a human guinea pig... Apr 24, 2009
Excellent book on a subject near and dear to my heart. After undergoing botched back surgery in 1997, and spending nearly eight weeks in two different hospitals because of it, I saw up close and personal many of the systemic problems in the American health-care system.
However, I had almost completely forgotten my own experience with Neurontin. If you're taking it now, and have concerns as to its effectiveness, wonder no more: It's absolutely bogus. My pain management doctor in Chicago had me taking the stuff for four years, supposedly to help the variety of painful sensations I experienced in both legs following surgery: electrical pain, sensation of fire ants crawling and stinging
During my incarceration (uh, that is, 'hospitalization'), the surgeon must've asked me a half-dozen times if the pain in my legs was, "better or worse than before the operation?" To which I, disgusted more with each query than the last, would reply, "Um, I didn't have any leg pain before the surgery."
NOTE TO PROSPECTIVE BACK SURGERY CANDIDATES: If you have no radiculopathy, or "radiating" pain in the legs, DO NOT HAVE SURGERY. I have since learned that, doing a laminectomy (with or without spinal fusion) to alleviate pain isolated in the low back, is futile. It has less than about a 20% chance of helping, and a much greater probability of making the situation worse.
The final straw concerning Neurontin came when I watched a "Dateline NBC" feature on Parke-Davis and their plans to promote their new wonder drug for just about anything imaginable.
"Off-label use" they call it.
When some of the sales staff for that company suffered pangs of conscience and quit their jobs, "Dateline" went in with a hidden camera and caught the sales manager pumping up his people with, "This drug, Neurontin, will be the 'gold standard' when it comes to off-label saturation of the market."
He then pointed to a huge chart listing every condition the salesperson should consider 'treatable' with Neurontin, which, frankly, included everything from rabies to scabies.
When I broached the subject with my doctor, he sheepishly demurred on the subject and immediately began offering other recently-approved meds such as Cymbalta (useless) and Lyrica, which I refused to take, based entirely on the stupidity of the name. (Having spent my time in Chicago writing ads for a car named Achieva, I was all-too-familiar with moronic monikers. The latest, or I should say 'lamest' of these? 'Abilify' Ugh.)
By the way, the hospital room I shared for five weeks with a one-legged diabetic at Rush-Presbyterian Chicago, was $880 a day in 1997. That was just for the room. A single multi-vitamin tablet I was given daily was $8.00.
Though to the hospital's credit I suppose, there was no extra charge for the "world-class" surgeon fusing my spine at L1-L2, the only 'healthy' part of my back, rather than L3-L4.
All told, the tab ran close to 300 THOUSAND BUCKS.
Please tell me: How in God's name could the 50 million or so of our fellow Americans without health insurance ever possibly survive something such as that?
2 of 2 found the following review helpful:
a Must Read Feb 08, 2009
This is a must read for me. I noticed that several of the reviews who gave this book only one star said things like everyone knows this stuff or that she didn't research well. I also noticed these same reviewers have reviewed no other books.
It makes me wonder if those people were paid to lower the rating on this book!
At any rate, I'll admit it, I don't review many books. I have one other book that I felt strongly enough about to review. Additionally I am an alternative health care provider so I am naturally biased in favor of what this book says. However, the information in here scared me. I look at studies and I look at what the experts say with a grain of salt, however I never in a million years thought they might essentially be making up their science and it starts sounding like they are.
I look at the criticisms of studies of alternative medicine and I wonder if it's not the same people who want to sell more medications that are saying the natural things don't work (even if they do).
Everyone needs to read this book and I hope they do.
The saddest thing is that this industry which has the potential to do so much good is being run into the ground by greedy executives.
5 of 19 found the following review helpful:
 More sensationalist bias Jan 13, 2009
If you've read one book along these lines, you've read them all. More heat than light.
I don't know what to say to readers who need a book like this to tell them that pharmaceutical companies have sales and marketing departments -- and that sales and marketing departments often resort to any tactic they can get away with.
To readers who also never suspected that many physicians are rote learners and proceduralists who don't really know that much about preventive medicine or even how to read lab reports and advise on supplements and other lifestyle changes - or that insurance companies seldom adequately compensate docs who do take the time and effort to learn these things -- this book might contain useful information. If you don't understand these things, you're part of the problem. So, wake up.
Trouble is, revelations useful to some are mixed with too much grasping, exploitive, misinformation, and only the savvy health consumer knows which is which.
The fact is, some pretty brilliant science supports many of these pharmaceutical innovations, particularly those targeting psychiatric and neurocognitive conditions. We have learned a lot in the last twenty years, and to think that pharma marketing alone accounts for the rise in medication usage and new diagnosis rates is ridiculous. The luddites probably said the same thing when eyeglasses were invented: "We never needed eyeglassses before. This is all an invention of the eyeglass makers. Off with their heads!" And no doubt many people lost opportunities or were dismissed as stupid for lack of corrected vision. Plenty of these medications WORK; otherwise people would not continue taking them. Those smart enough to know that they have an impairing mental disorder, that is.
When it comes to neurocognitive conditions in particular, our Daily Meds is simply a poorly researched book, with a dominant anti-medication agenda and no acknowledgment of modern strides in neuroscience. It seems that Peterson is determined to let nothing -- no facts, no literature, no first-person stories, and not an ounce of compassion -- come between her and her cognitive dissonance. She's entitled to her opinions, but just don't call it reporting.
For example, take the subject of ADHD, one in which I'm fairly knowledgeable. There's no balance here, not even an attempt at it. Peterson scoffs at those who claim to have received the benefits touted by ADHD medications -- as if such claims represent its own kind of illness or, worse, the mesmerizing effect of pharma ads.
But I happen to know the person she profiles, Patrick Hurley, who was diagnosed late in life with ADHD. And I cannot think of a clearer example of Peterson not seeing what she did not want to see. Her subtly mocking tone as she relates his story not only betrays her ignorance of neurocognitive conditions such as ADHD, it also betrays her utter lack of empathy and compassion for people who would find a lifeline in Hurley's story. I can't help but wonder if she betrayed her interview subject as well, never telling him of her agenda in wanting to make him look like a fool. Well, as far as I'm concerned, Peterson is the one looking foolish. She's practically singing from the Scientology songbook. And trying to pass herself off as a crack reporter. Puh-leeze.
Unlike many adults with ADHD who, fearing stigma, hesitate to come forward with news of their diagnosis and successful treatment, Mr. Hurley not only came forward, he also dedicated himself to writing a book to help others. Having spent his career in law enforcement, he saw first-hand how unrecognized ADHD was perpetuating the arrest and incarceration cycle for too many people.
So, with psychologist Robert Eme, he wrote a book, ADHD and the Criminal Justice System: Spinning out of Control. It targets everyone in the justice system from traffic cops to parole officers, with ways to recognize ADHD and steer these people towards help instead of recidivism. And the information provided is well-researched, solid, and helpful.
Given a choice between a book like that -- one which actually elevates society and even saves people's lives -- and Our Daily Meds, sorry, there's no contest. I choose illumination and education over scaremongering and embarrassingly biased "reporting" any day. Peterson should be ashamed of herself.
0 of 2 found the following review helpful:
Breakfast at Sally's Dec 22, 2008
This book has made me more compassionate for the homeless and charities like the Salvation Army. Thanks Richard for telling your story.
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