Here are 51 books that Drugs and the FDA fans have personally recommended if you like
Drugs and the FDA.
Book DNA is a community of 12,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.
I am a medical thriller author who, during a brief stint in residency after medical school, saw up close what the world of medicine is really like, from the level of the patient at the bedside to the industrial level with big corporate players such as pharmaceutical and health insurance companies. I am in a position to curate what books can inform the general public about such topics.
Pharmaceutical drugs are not just about brand-name products with corporate exclusivity over them. There’s also the world of generic drugs, with multiple companies manufacturing the same drug, and even that part of the industry can have hidden dangers.
Besides this eye-opener about generic drugs, the book provides a focus on the efforts of one person investigating shady generic drug companies, providing the mild feel of a detective novel.
Kirkus Reviews Best Health and Science Books of 2019
Science Friday Best Books of 2019
New postscript by the author
From an award-winning journalist, an explosive narrative investigation of the generic drug boom that reveals fraud and life-threatening dangers on a global scale—The Jungle for pharmaceuticals
Many have hailed the widespread use of generic drugs as one of the most important public-health developments of the twenty-first century. Today, almost 90 percent of our pharmaceutical market is comprised of generics,…
It is April 1st, 2038. Day 60 of China's blockade of the rebel island of Taiwan.
The US government has agreed to provide Taiwan with a weapons system so advanced that it can disrupt the balance of power in the region. But what pilot would be crazy enough to run…
I am a medical thriller author who, during a brief stint in residency after medical school, saw up close what the world of medicine is really like, from the level of the patient at the bedside to the industrial level with big corporate players such as pharmaceutical and health insurance companies. I am in a position to curate what books can inform the general public about such topics.
If you already dislike the pharmaceutical industry for whatever reason, this book could certainly make your blood boil further.
In an effort to get a diverse perspective on Big Pharma, I made sure to check out a book with a contrary opinion, and this one fit the bill. I came away with a greater awareness of the industry’s impacts that are widespread globally, not locally.
In Pharmanomics, investigative journalist Nick Dearden digs down into the way we produce our medicines and finds that Big Pharma is failing us, with catastrophic consequences.
Big Pharma is more interested in profit than health. This was made clear as governments rushed to produce vaccines during the Covid pandemic. Behind the much-trumpeted scientific breakthroughs, major companies found new ways of gouging billions from governments in the West while abandoning the Global South. But this is only the latest episode in a long history of financialising medicine - from Purdue's rapacious marketing of highly addictive…
I am a medical thriller author who, during a brief stint in residency after medical school, saw up close what the world of medicine is really like, from the level of the patient at the bedside to the industrial level with big corporate players such as pharmaceutical and health insurance companies. I am in a position to curate what books can inform the general public about such topics.
I have always known that problems can potentially occur with pharmaceutical drugs, even when regulations are in place. But when there is a black market for dangerous counterfeit versions of those drugs, the risk to patient safety skyrockets.
I liked how this book opened my eyes to this global phenomenon that is more common than one might think.
Long the scourge of developing countries, fake pills are now increasingly common in the United States. The explosion of Internet commerce, coupled with globalization and increased pharmaceutical use has led to an unprecedented vulnerability in the U.S. drug supply. Today, an estimated 80% of our drugs are manufactured overseas, mostly in India and China. Every link along this supply chain offers an opportunity for counterfeiters, and increasingly, they are breaking in. In 2008, fake doses of the blood thinner Heparin killed 81 people worldwide and resulted in hundreds of severe allergic reactions in the United States. In 2012, a counterfeit…
Tina Edwards loved her childhood and creating fairy houses, a passion shared with her father, a world-renowned architect. But at nine years old, she found him dead at his desk and is haunted by this memory. Tina's mother abruptly moved away, leaving Tina with feelings of abandonment and suspicion.
I am a medical thriller author who, during a brief stint in residency after medical school, saw up close what the world of medicine is really like, from the level of the patient at the bedside to the industrial level with big corporate players such as pharmaceutical and health insurance companies. I am in a position to curate what books can inform the general public about such topics.
When dishonest companies are willing to cut corners for profit, they are essentially akin to criminal organizations.
This book explores such an example with one particular drug startup company. I liked getting a front-row seat for looking at the great lengths that corporate crooks would go for profit.
It provides another unique perspective on the pharma industry, nicely complementing the other pharma books in this list of mine.
'A tour de force' - Patrick Radden Keefe, author of Empire of Pain
From the doctor's office to the opioid crisis, The Hard Sell is the story of a pharmaceutical company that got Americans hooked on fentanyl - and how it was finally held to account. Now a Netflix Original Movie, Pain Hustlers, starring Emily Blunt and Chris Evans.
In the early 2000s, John Kapoor had already amassed a small fortune in pharmaceuticals when he founded Insys Therapeutics. A boom time for painkillers, he had developed a novel formulation of fentanyl, the most potent opioid on the market.
As a physician, medicine is my job. But along the way, I wondered how medicine got to where it is now–like really wondered. I wondered to the point that I was reading the original treatises written by 18th-century physicians. I started publishing research on medical history and giving presentations at medical conferences. I’d like to think this helps me be a better doctor by broadening my perspective on the healthcare industry. But at the very least, I’ve found these books enjoyable and compelling. I hope you enjoy them, too!
This remarkable story illustrates that if something in healthcare sounds too good to be true, it probably is. I had to stop listening to it before going to sleep because the compelling narrative was keeping me up at night.
The author seamlessly combined this compelling narrative with exceptional research behind the Food and Drug Administration, the heroine who prevented thalidomide approval in the United States, and the catastrophic effects of a pharmaceutical company using loopholes.
Longlisted for the Andrew 2024 Carnegie Medal for Non-Fiction
The shocking, never-before-told story of America's thalidomide victims
In Germany on Christmas Day 1956 a baby girl was born without ears. She was the first victim of the notorious thalidomide epidemic. There would be over 10,000 more across 46 countries.
For years the world believed the United States had avoided the catastrophe. After Frances Kelsey at the Food and Drug Administration became suspicious of the dangers of thalidomide in 1960, she led a successful fight to block its commercial approval.
But now, having probed government and corporate archives and interviewed hundreds…
I’ve been writing, speaking, blogging, and tweeting about the history of American children and their childhoods for many decades. When I went to school—a long time ago—the subject did not come up, nor did I learn much in college or graduate school. I went out and dug up the story as did many of the authors I list here. I read many novels and autobiographies featuring childhood, and I looked at family portraits in museums with new eyes. Childhood history is fascinating and it is a lot of fun. And too, it is a great subject for book groups.
The Covid-19 pandemic makes this book a must-read as the author, reminds us that so many medications prescribed for children have not received all the tests for safety necessary to protect them. Yes, we got the heroin out of teething syrups, and our bottles now have child safety caps. Fun fact: the author you will learn, was as they put it at the time, an aspirin poisoned child thanks to those good-tasting baby aspirin. Shocking reality: pediatric drug research and regulation often follows disasters rather than preventing them. That’s why we, fortunately, have to wait for full testing before those covid vaccines get into the arms of the young. This book is an eye-opener.
Children and Drug Safety traces the development, use, and marketing of drugs for children in the twentieth century, a history that sits at the interface of the state, business, health care providers, parents, and children. This book illuminates the historical dimension of a clinical and policy issue with great contemporary significance-many of the drugs administered to children today have never been tested for safety and efficacy in the pediatric population.
Each chapter of Children and Drug Safety engages with major turning points in pediatric drug development; themes of children's risk, rights, protection and the evolving context of childhood; child-rearing; and…
This mystery involves amateur sleuth Zora Harrison who reopens a cold case concerning the disappearance of an old friend and colleague, Jane Hubbard. Jane was swindled by a broker who feared her testimony, but there are other suspects as well, including a jealous rival.
I’ve been researching treatment harms for 3 decades and founded RxISK.org in 2012, now an important site for people to report these harms. They’ve been reporting in their thousands often in personal accounts that feature health service gaslighting. During these years, our treatments have become a leading cause of mortality and morbidity, the time it takes to recognize harms has been getting longer, and our medication burdens heavier. We have a health crisis that parallels the climate crisis. Both Green parties and Greta Thunberg’s generation are turning a blind eye to the health chemicals central to this. We need to understand what is going wrong and turn it around.
Adverse Reactions opens with a grim story about a medical father who has given chloramphenicol, an apparently safe drug, to his son and watches him die a slow and agonizing death. The father's efforts to make sure this cannot happen again are extraordinary. Almost single-handedly he lays the basis for the drug safety systems we now have. At the same time, the drug company that made chloramphenicol invented the playbook which means these safety systems don’t work and prescription drug-induced death may now be the commonest form of death there is.
The author of Children of Psychiatrists recreates one of the largest and most controversial investigations in medical history, presenting the story behind Cholramphenicol, a widely-used antibiotic that resulted in hundreds of deaths, innumerable lawsuits, and countless FDA actions.
I’m a West Virginia-based journalist. I have covered the opioid epidemic for nearly 10 years. In 2017, I was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting for stories about massive shipments of OxyContin and other painkillers to small towns in Appalachia.
McGreal’s book fell a bit under the radar, but in my mind, it’s one of the best books of reportage on the opioid epidemic. As a reporter for The Guardian, McGreal covered the drug crisis for years. American Overdose connects all the dots that caused it. The book starts out, “Even as a teenager, Henry Vinson wanted to be an undertaker,” then takes flight from the hollows of West Virginia to the halls of Congress. McGreal is a tenacious reporter and a superb writer. He’s one of the first reporters to lay bare the Food and Drug Administration’s cozy relationship with Purdue Pharma. And he introduces readers to former DEA agent Joe Rannazzisi, who tried to put the brakes on massive shipments of painkillers to small towns across America, but was forced to step aside after Big Pharma complained about him to powerful U.S. lawmakers. The story builds from…
LONGLISTED FOR THE ORWELL PRIZE FOR POLITICAL WRITING 2019
A devastating portrait of America's opioid painkiller epidemic - the deadliest drug crisis in US history.
One hundred and fifty Americans are killed each day by the opioid epidemic. But, as Chris McGreal reveals it was an avoidable tragedy driven by bad science, corporate greed and a corrupted medical system. He tells the stories of the families devastated by painkillers they thought would heal, and the physicians and scientists who took on the drug companies behind the epidemic. American Overdose is a powerful account of the terrible human cost of the…
I baked my first loaf of bread when I was eight. It was shaped like a brick and weighed about the same. With my grandma’s help, I tweaked the recipe, learned the importance of precise measurements, practiced my kneading, and ultimately won a blue ribbon for my efforts at the 4-H county fair. In the years since, my passion for food has grown. I love to learn how various crops are grown and harvested, I nearly cried when I tasted cheese I made myself, and I’ve been known to arrange travel around specific culinary adventures. For me, learning about food is nearly as enjoyable as eating it!
This book is like watching a food-centric episode of Dateline, with fraud, malice, and cheating behind every food factory door. Candy tainted with arsenic, sausages made with meat scraps and rodent droppings swept off the floor, toothache medication made with cocaine – it’s all true. Sure, most of these food and medication offenses happened more than 100 years ago, but this book presents the information in a fresh, fascinating, and understandable way. I, for one, was gripped by the stories and grateful for changes in food standards and oversight.
Six starred reviews- Booklist BCCB Kirkus Reviews Publishers Weekly School Library Connection Shelf Awareness
ALSC Notable Children's Book Washington Post Best Children's Book NCTE Orbis Pictus Honor Book BCCB Blue Ribbon Kirkus Reviews Best Children's Book NSTA Outstanding Science Trade Book for Students K-12 Chicago Public Library Best Children's Book
"Revolting and riveting in turns, Jarrow's masterfully crafted narrative will fundamentally alter how readers view their food.Though laced with toxins, this is anything but toxic." -- Kirkus Reviews, starred review
Formaldehyde, borax, salicylic acid. Today, these chemicals are used in embalming fluids, cleaning supplies, and acne medications. But in 1900,…
On a foggy morning in New York City, a man and a woman run into each other, literally. The man, a writer, invites the woman, an artist, for coffee. They married just two months later. And four years later, their marriage is crumbling. On a foggy morning in New York…
Frank S. David, MD, PhD leads the biopharma consulting firm Pharmagellan, where he advises drug companies and investors on R&D and business strategy. He is also an academic researcher on strategy, regulation, and policy in the drug industry; a member of the Harvard-MIT Center for Regulatory Science; and a former blogger at Forbes.com.
This account of the early years of Vertex Pharmaceuticals, from its inception as a scrappy start-up to its early work in HIV, is a must-read classic for anyone interested in how science turns into new drugs. Barry Werth’s journalistic play-by-play is a cinematic, true-to-life picture of the strategic decisions, real-world challenges, and larger-than-life personalities that underlie modern drug development. His riveting follow-up, The Antidote, continues the saga by taking readers through Vertex’s pathbreaking work to transform the care of patients with hepatitis C and cystic fibrosis.
