Big Pharma Syndrome

Marcia Angell's latest book didn't turn out as she'd first imagined. Four years ago the Harvard academic started delving into clinical trials. But when her research uncovered disturbing goings-on throughout the realm of medicine, "I found," she says, "that all roads were leading to the drug companies." This wasn't the conclusion of an innocent who'd blundered into the field. A former editor-in-chief of the New England Journal of Medicine, Angell understood better than most the methods of big pharma, but she still thought the industry was dedicated to finding new medicines. She's now sure she was wrong.

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