Summary and Reviews of Generation Rx by Greg Critser

Media Reviews

The New York Times - Joe Queenan Apocalyptic literature naturally gravitates toward the maudlin, lamenting that the world is going to hell in a handbasket, usually courtesy of someone like Eminem or Tom DeLay. This is what makes Greg Critser's Generation Rx"such an unexpected delight. Although his message is unrelievedly depressing - drug companies, with the nation's physicians and the federal government already on the payroll, have transmogrified a self-reliant nation into a herd of functional drug addicts - there is something so congenial and non-self-righteous about the way he tells his story that few of the scoundrels singled out for public obloquy will take personal offense.

The New York Times - Michiko Kakutani What Mr. Critser has done in these pages is synthesize a lot of information and reserve it to the reader in an accessible, easily digested form - much as he did with information about obesity in his 2003 book, Fat Land. While his prose sometimes buckles from his efforts to be chatty and conversational - at one point, he describes the liver, which can regenerate itself, as "a kind of Donald Trump of the human body" - he does a lucid job conveying the dramatic ways in which the development and marketing of pharmaceuticals have changed over the last two decades and the equally dramatic and often disturbing consequences of this phenomenon.

Booklist - Donna Chavez Starred Review. Critser has a knack for turning the words of the pharmaceutical industry--he calls it Big Pharma--against it, packing every page with enough "Oh, wow!" information to jade even the most hardened cynic.

Kirkus Reviews If a knowledgeable public is the key, this straightforward, highly readable book is a step in the right direction.

Library Journal - Kathy Arsenault In this informed study of the U.S. pharmaceutical industry, journalist Critser sounds the impassioned alert that your medicine cabinet may be hazardous to your health....To the reader's great relief, this sorry saga of unprincipled greed is followed by potential practical solutions...For all libraries.

Publishers Weekly According to Critser, almost half of all Americans use a prescription drug daily; one in six take three or more. What are the possible consequences of the staggering recent growth in the use of such drugs? ....Critser's account is solid, thorough and told with vigor.

Reader Reviews

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