Over the past twenty-five years, the practice of medicine has been subverted by the business of medicine, sacrificing old-style doctoring to fit the values of consumer capitalism. InWhite Coat, Black Hat: Adventures on the Dark Side of Medicine, physician and moral philosopher Carl Elliott traces for the first time the evolutionary path of this new direction in health care, revealing the dangerous underbelly of the beast that has emerged. We're introduced to the often shifty characters who work the production line in Big Pharma: the professional guinea pigs who test-pilot new drugs; the ghostwriters who pen "scientific" articles for drug manufacturers; the PR specialists who manufacture "news" bulletins; the drug reps who will do practically anything to get their numbers up; the "thought leaders" who travel the world to enlighten the medical community about the wonders of the latest release; even, finally, the ethicists who oversee all this from their pharma-funded perches.
Check out Carl Elliott's recent clinical trial expose in Mother Jones, and his piece on Big Pharma's Thought Leaders in the Chronicle Review.
White Coat, Black Hat: Adventures on the Dark Side of Medicine
Over the past twenty-five years, the practice of medicine has been subverted by the business of medicine, sacrificing old-style doctoring to fit the values of consumer capitalism. InWhite Coat, Black Hat: Adventures on the Dark Side of Medicine, physician and moral philosopher Carl Elliott traces for the first time the evolutionary path of this new direction in health care, revealing the dangerous underbelly of the beast that has emerged. We're introduced to the often shifty characters who work the production line in Big Pharma: the professional guinea pigs who test-pilot new drugs; the ghostwriters who pen "scientific" articles for drug manufacturers; the PR specialists who manufacture "news" bulletins; the drug reps who will do practically anything to get their numbers up; the "thought leaders" who travel the world to enlighten the medical community about the wonders of the latest release; even, finally, the ethicists who oversee all this from their pharma-funded perches.
Check out Carl Elliott's recent clinical trial expose in Mother Jones, and his piece on Big Pharma's Thought Leaders in the Chronicle Review.