Summary and Reviews of Generation Rx by Greg Critser

Generation Rx by Greg Critser

Generation Rx

How Prescription Drugs Are Altering American Lives, Minds, and Bodies

by Greg Critser
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  • Critics' Consensus (7):
  • First Published:
  • Oct 7, 2005, 288 pages
  • Paperback:
  • Jan 2007, 320 pages
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About This Book

Book Summary

Generation Rx will make every American who has ever taken a prescription drug look anew at what's in our medicine cabinets, and why.

Greg Critser's brilliantly incisive Generation Rx moves the conversation about prescription drugs to where it hits home: our own bodies. How, he asks, has big pharma created a nation of pharmaceutical tribes, each with its own unique beliefs, taboos, and brand loyalties? How have powerful chemical compounds for chronic diseases, once controlled by physicians, become substances we feel entitled to, whether we need them or not? How did we come to hate drug companies but love their pills?

Read on in Generation Rx for: -- exclusive interviews with the strategists, scientists, and current and former heads of GlaxoSmithKline, Eli Lilly, Merck, Roche, and more -- a first-ever, inside look at the rollicking business story behind pharma's rise to power -- the dramatic effects our drug culture is having on our major organs, from the liver to the heart to the brain -- why old bodies and young bodies are the biggest, and riskiest, arenas for our great American prescription pill party -- how the largely uncharted terrain of polypharmacy (various drugs taken together) has unleashed unanticipated, often deadly, consequences on unwitting patients

Generation Rx will make every American who has ever taken a prescription drug look anew at what's in our medicine cabinets, and why.

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Reviews

BookBrowse Review

BookBrowse

If you're looking for a light, easy to digest read you may find Generation Rx provides more information than you want to know. However, if you really want to understand the American pharmaceutical business and its effects on the American people, stop right here and read the very extensive excerpt at BookBrowse, which is not only interesting in its own right but will give you a good flavor of the book as a whole..continued

Full Review (156 words)

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(Reviewed by BookBrowse Review Team).

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Beyond the Book



Medical Prescriptions in USA

  • The average number of prescriptions per person per year soared from 7 in 1993, to 12 in 2004.
  • According to the American Society of Clinical Pharmacologists, in 2000 27% of elderly patients received 9+ medications (compared to 17% in 1997).
  • The amount spent to advertise prescription drugs directly to consumers in 2004 was $4.45 billion (up from $2m in 1980) .
  • The number of Americans who annually request and receive a prescription for a specific drug after seeing a commercial is 8.5 million.
  • GlaxoSmithKline was cited by the FDA for deceptive and misleading advertising 14 times between 1997 and 2001 but was never fined.
  • The FDA issued 88 notices of violation between 1997 and 2001 for misleading print and TV ads but could not levy a single fine.
  • ...

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