Drug Companies: Marketing Machines Gone Awry

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New York Times reporter Melody Petersen, who covered the pharmaceutical industry for four years, has now published a book titled Our Daily Meds: How the pharmaceutical companies transformed themselves into slick marketing machines and hooked the nation on prescription drugs. In her book, Petersen refutes the commonly-held notion that drug companies plow their profits back into research to develop life-saving drugs, and concludes instead that drug companies primarily put their profits into influencing medical science and marketing drugs. Petersen writes, "With their hoards of cash, the companies have readily handed money to patient groups, hospitals, universities, physician societies, government agencies and just about any organization they want on their side. ... The industry's cash-filled coffers have given it a stranglehold on medical science." Petersen also exposes the problems with direct-to-consumer advertising and the drug industry's portrayal of common conditions, like anxiety and urinary frequency, as illnesses, as a way to convince people they need medication.