Our Daily Meds : Drug companies are driven by profits, not by what is best for the patient

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Saturday, January 10, 2009 11:35 am Email this article
"This book is about how America's for-profit medical system — filled with incentives to make money and disincentives for good care — has failed," 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 told Bill Moyers.

"In too many cases, whether a medicine helps or harms a patient has become secondary to how much it will bring shareholders in profit."

"With Wall Street driving it, there is this constant pressure to exceed the level of revenues that you made the year before."

"The result of this push from Wall Street... and executive's stock options depend on it... if companies don't do this, then their stock price goes down, [ and ] executives salaries go down."

"It's driven to get those profits up." 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.

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• Book - Our Daily Meds