Our Daily Meds : Book attacked in New York Post, but the critic is paid by the drug industry

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Monday, January 12, 2009 8:35 am Email this article
"I was fascinated to read an attack on your book, a seeming review in the New York Post, 'A Hard Pill to Swallow', that was very critical of your book by Robert Goldberg," Bill Moyers said to Melody Petersen, author of a new book called Our Daily Meds: How The Pharmaceutical Companies Transformed Themselves Into Slick Marketing Machines And Hooked The Nation On Prescription Drugs.

"It says nothing about who Robert Goldberg is," Moyers continued.

"But when you do a little investigating, it turns out that he is Vice President of a group that receives funding from the drug industry, but he does not disclose this fact in this review."

"Exactly," Petersen said. "This is what they do over and over again. The drug companies are very good at putting their words in the words of someone who looks independent to get their message across."

"The drug companies learned from the tobacco industry that the public would believe their message if it came from someone who appeared independent," Peterson wrote a letter to the New York Post in response to Goldberg's attack.

"People need honest information about medicines, not propaganda." Former New York Times Journalist

Melody former covered the drug industry for the New York Times

Melody, who formerly covered the drug industry for the New York Times, revealed this last Friday night, May 16th, 2008, in an interview with Bill Moyers on his PBS television program Journal.

REFERENCE

Petersen M. Our Daily Meds : How the Pharmaceutical Companies Transformed Themselves Into Slick Marketing Machines and Hooked the Nation on Prescription Drugs. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2008.

Book’s Website

 

 

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